According to meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, it can be easy to feel like we’re bystanders to our own lives. “Sometimes we live a short distance from our bodies and our emotions,” Salzberg told Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, on a recent episode of Life As It Is. “Life loses its texture, and we’re just getting by, living out each day.”

Salzberg believes that many of us yearn for a deeper sense of happiness and purpose, but our familiar patterns tend to get in the way and keep us trapped in constriction. In her new book, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom, she explores how we can work with our habitual patterns and cultivate greater creativity, connection, and joy. Weaving together Buddhist psychology, her own experiences, and insight from a variety of contemplative traditions, she lays out a path toward what she calls “real life,” or a life of spaciousness and freedom.

In the podcast episode, Shaheen sat down with Salzberg to discuss the forces that keep us trapped in isolation, what it means to live a real life, how to work with the three hindrances, and how expansiveness makes love more available to us. Read an excerpt from their conversation below, and then listen to the full episode.

Throughout the book, you explore the ways we yearn for something beyond traditional successes and accomplishments. Interestingly, you write that it’s not the yearning that causes the trouble; instead, it’s our tendency to search in the wrong places. Can you say more about how our yearning for happiness can actually support us in our journey to a real life? Everybody wants to be happy, and happy not in a superficial sense but in a deeper sense. We all want a feeling of being at home somewhere in this life. Whether it’s in the body, in the mind, with our families, with friends, or on the planet, we want a sense of belonging without any artifice or pretense of being better than we are—we want to belong just as we are. 

We all long for this, but generally, we’re not looking in the right places. So the problem is bad aim. We think the problem is wanting to be happy, but it’s not. When we look at our life, we can realize, “Wow, if I’m generous, I actually feel a kind of joy that’s different from when I’m enslaved to my fearful thoughts.” These are different paths, and they have different consequences. We can observe that. So it’s through the force of attention that we get to see that there are actually ways we can craft our lives. It’s like our lives themselves become our own creative medium for more happiness.

So though we might yearn for a deeper sense of happiness, we often get caught by our patterns and conditioning. You describe the hindrances of Buddhist psychology as patterns that hinder our ability to live fully and respond to the world around us in meaningful ways. Can you walk us through the three hindrances? First, what are the typical behaviors associated with grasping, and how can it narrow our sense of where happiness can be found? First of all, it’s not the sheer arising of these states that’s the problem. It’s when we’re seduced by them, when we take them to heart, and especially when we act motivated by them. Then we’re in trouble. But the sheer arising is just what’s happening. It becomes a problem when we feel like we’re bad or wrong because we still feel grasping or hatred. You can’t control what comes up in your mind. One of my early teachers, Munindra, used to say to me, “Why are you so upset about this thought that has come up in your mind? Did you invite it? Did you say, ‘At 3:15 I’d like to be filled with self-hatred, please’? No.” When conditions come together for something to arise, it will arise. But that doesn’t mean you have to feel passive. How we relate to what comes up in our mind is everything. That’s sort of the point of the path.

Grasping can take the form of infatuation, clinging, craving, always looking for the next thing that will permanently satisfy us, or an inability to see the bigger picture. When we’re caught in this state, do we look at what we’re compromising in order to get the thing that we think we need? Are we looking at what we’re giving up? Are we holding onto what we want too tightly? We completely freak out because it’s not fixed. But nothing is fixed. Everything is changing. I sometimes wonder if we’re all a little bit like hoarders. Maybe we don’t have piles of phone books in our apartment, but [we still accumulate] a lot of stuff. These things are almost like totems against change, totems against death: “If I get another one of those, then I will feel fulfilled and whole.” But really, we can feel whole without it, and it’s better not needing that new object or accolade. Because once we feel we need it, we’re kind of sunk.

After craving or grasping, we have aversion, which you describe as a punishing attitude toward ourselves and others. Can you walk us through the forms that aversion can take, as well as the dangers they may bring? In some schools of Buddhist psychology, it’s thought that anger and fear are the same mind state: they’re both aversion. They’re both striking out against what’s happening, trying to declare it to be untrue. Anger is the outflowing, expressive, energized form; fear and all its manifestations are the frozen, imploding form of striking out and wanting to separate from what’s happening.

Again, it’s not that these states are bad. But let’s look at anger as one example. The example I use a lot in the book is shame as a form of anger at oneself, real lacerating self-hatred. Is shame onward-leading? Look how exhausting it is. Look at how humiliating it is. Does shame really give us the energy to seek change, to make amends, or to maybe see, “Oh, yeah, I blew it, how can I go on in a better way?” Well, no. We’re devastated. We feel like we’re the worst person who ever lived. It’s not just what we said or what we did—it’s like our whole being is restless in that state. As someone said to me, whom I quote in the book, the brain filled with shame cannot learn.

So we really try to look at anger and fear in all their forms, and we try not to condemn these feelings or to judge them but to ask: How much of this pattern leads to more suffering, and how much leads to the end of suffering? We have a chance here.

The third hindrance is delusion, which you describe as a sense of numbness, disembodiment, and resistance to seeing things as they truly are. Can you say more about how we can work with our patterns of delusion? I should emphasize that we can work with all these patterns. It’s not just a question of recognizing them and feeling sad. All of these states are completely workable, and we can learn a different relationship to them instead of falling into them on the one side or hating them on the other. Cultivating this new relationship is the first and foundational step, and it’s almost the definition of mindfulness. It’s the place in the middle where we can see what’s going on in a balanced way: Is learning happening? Is kindness happening? Is there more spaciousness? Everything is workable, and these patterns aren’t forever.

Delusion is my favorite of the three. We all have a mix of grasping, aversion, and delusion, but sometimes people’s personality structure really favors one over the other. My personal pattern is delusion. Before I get into grasping or aversion, I’ll just space out and go numb. It can be comforting in some way. But it’s not onward leading. When we’re lost in delusion, we’re often counting on other people to define life for us, to define reality for us, and to tell us what’s good and what’s not because we’re just lost in space. So that’s very confining, too. When combined with fear, delusion can make us want to hold on to anything that seems like it’ll give us a sense of security or knowing. That’s where fundamentalism is said to come from from the Buddhist perspective.

Can you say more about what meditation has taught you about looking directly at difficult feelings and being with them rather than these fruitless attempts to escape them? I think it starts with an understanding and direct knowledge that those attempts are fruitless. They’re not bad, and they’re not cowardly or evidence of some character flaw, but they’re not going to work. The feelings just come back in some other form. They might ambush us in some way. And so we practice looking directly at them, taking an interest in them, rather than having a judgment about them. We ask, What does it feel like in my body? Let’s say you want a new car, and you’re experiencing craving or desire. All your energy is going toward: Should I get that kind of upholstery or that kind of upholstery? Should I get that speaker system or that other one? It’s very rare that we pivot our attention back and say to ourselves, What does it feel like to want something so badly? What’s that craving made of? Because sometimes we see that these feelings are compounds. These are strong feelings, and they’re complex. We look at craving, and sometimes we find a lot of loneliness. It’s not only craving. We look at anger, and we see a lot of sadness or fear or hopelessness. But unless we make the pivot, we’re not going to learn about the very nature of those forces.

Part of being mindful is making that pivot: not, What am I angry about and what am I going to do, but, What is anger? What does it feel like in my body? We name it, if we can. We pay attention to it. We take an interest in it. We remember, as we start to put ourselves down, that that’s not the point. These are painful states; they’re not bad states. We can have some compassion for ourselves in the face of them. And lo and behold, you find that things begin to shift. Even though that very state has come up, even though it may come up a lot, you’re so different with it. That changes everything.

The post Why We Look for Happiness in the Wrong Places appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

As a psychiatrist and Zen priest, Robert Waldinger has devoted much of his professional career to the question of what makes a good life. He currently serves as director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which is the longest scientific study of happiness. The study has tracked the lives of participants for over seventy-five years, tracing how childhood experiences and relationships affect health and well-being later in life. In his new book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, Waldinger shares what he’s learned from directing the study.

In a recent episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sat down with Waldinger to discuss what makes a good life, the common regrets that people have toward the end of their lives, and how his Zen practice informs his work as a psychiatrist. Read an excerpt from their conversation below, and then listen to the full episode.

James Shaheen: A recurring question in the book is: What makes a good life? What has the data shown you in this regard?

Robert Waldinger: To put it in Buddhist terms, a good life is made with sangha. When we studied people throughout their lives, if we wanted to predict who was going to stay healthy and be happier and live longer, we found two key predictors. One, of course, was taking care of your health, and that was not a surprise. But the surprise was that the people who stayed healthier and were happier were the people who had better, warmer connections with other people. Good relationships really predicted well-being over time.

At first, we didn’t believe our own data: How could good relationships help prevent coronary artery disease or make it less likely that you were going to get rheumatoid arthritis? And so we’ve spent the last ten years studying the mechanisms by which our relationships actually get inside our bodies and shape our health. It’s hard to determine for any one person exactly what caused what, but when we look at thousands of lives, as we’ve done, then we can say there are these predictors, and a lot of the predictors stem from relationships and community. There was a developmental researcher, Michael Rutter, who once said that all the data show that what every child needs to grow up healthy is one consistent, caring adult who’s crazy about them. If you have that, you’ve got a huge leg up on a good life.

What are some of the factors that make a relationship successful? What we’ve seen is that it’s important to be able to feel like yourself in a relationship—to feel like you don’t have to stifle, suppress, or hide away parts of yourself. People tend to identify the relationships where they feel like they can be authentic as the most important and most impactful in their lives. That doesn’t mean things have to be smooth all the time. In fact, you can still have a very argumentative relationship with somebody where you feel you can be yourself and that you’re fundamentally respected.

“A good life is made with sangha.”

It’s also important to have people who will be there for you no matter what. We asked our original participants, “List all the people who you could call in the middle of the night if you were sick or scared.” Some people could list several people. Some of our participants couldn’t list anybody. We think that having at least one relationship, one person to whom you feel securely attached and securely connected, is an essential component of what keeps us healthy.

In the book, you mention three important factors in maintaining mutually fulfilling relationships: curiosity, generosity, and what you call learning new dance steps. Can you walk us through each of these factors? Curiosity is the act of bringing what we call in Zen beginner’s mind, putting aside all your preconceptions and bringing a curiosity even to the person you feel you know everything about. This can be very useful, especially if you’re going to a family gathering where you know everyone and you know which jokes they’re going to tell. One of my meditation teachers gave me the instruction once to ask myself, “What’s here that I have never noticed before?” I find that extremely useful when I am coming into relationship with somebody who I feel like I’ve known for a long time or I know so much about. You can also bring this sense of curiosity to meeting someone you don’t know by asking them questions, which communicates to them, “I recognize you, I’m interested in you.” You will be amazed at how people will light up in response to that kind of curiosity.

Then there’s generosity. One of the things that meditation practice shows us is our judging minds. One exercise that I love that’s really painful for me is counting how many judgments you make in ten minutes of meditation. I lose count. My mind is filled with judgments all the time. Our minds are going to judge. That’s part of what the human mind does. But we can hold those judgments lightly. We can set them aside and just be with the person in front of us. Of course, there’s also generosity of our resources, time, attention, money, and physical help. All of those are relationship builders.

Then there’s learning new dance steps. I started thinking of it this way when my wife and I took a beginners’ dance class. A lot of the people in the dance class were learning to dance because they wanted to be able to dance at their weddings. We could see that some couples would learn new dance steps together, and they could really move and adjust to each other. And some couples just had a terrible time. What I began to understand is that we’re always having to adapt to each other in relationships. We’re always having to learn new things. My wife and I have been married for thirty-six years. We thought we were signing up for particular people when we committed to each other, and then she and I have both grown and changed a lot. The question is: Can we change in such a way that we adapt to each other? That’s what I mean by learning new dance steps. We thought we knew how to dance well together when we first got together, but our dance moves have changed with each other. Can those dance moves be somewhat harmonious even as we’re both developing into different people? That doesn’t just happen in intimate partnerships. It happens in long friendships. Lord knows it happens in family relationships. You need to allow each other room to have grown out of old patterns.

You also draw from the work of Erik and Joan Erikson in laying out the stages of life. Can you walk us through the stages of what you call a lifetime of adult relationships? How do our relational needs shift as we get older? Erik Erikson and Joan Erikson were wonderful thinkers about adult life. I used to think that when I got to my 20s, I was done. If I was lucky, I’d find a partner, I’d find a profession, and I would just live out the rest of my life. There wouldn’t be much development or much growth. The Eriksons were the first to say that there’s a whole path of development in adult life. Erikson’s idea was that young adulthood is a challenge of achieving intimacy versus isolation. The big question is: Can I find someone to love? Can I find someone to love me? Or am I going to be alone? Many of us do work out that challenge in young adulthood. Some people work it out in their 70s. Stages are helpful frameworks, but we don’t all fit into them perfectly.

Then there is a stage in middle age of generativity versus stagnation. Generativity is the Eriksonian term for fostering the welfare of the next generation. What Erikson said was that we all get to a point in our adult development where we really want to further the lives of those who come next. It could be raising children. It could be mentoring people in our work lives. It could be mentoring younger people in a hobby or in a volunteer activity. It’s a concern beyond the self. And I think we know from Buddhist teachings that when we move beyond the small self, the “I, me, mine” self, we grow, and we thrive. It’s a very important contributor to well-being.

And then old age, Erikson said, was the challenge of integrity versus despair. Integrity is the ability to look back on your life and say, “This was a good enough life. I’ve had a decent run of things” as opposed to despair, or the sense that you’ve wasted your life. Sometimes when we talk about paying attention in meditation practice, we say: don’t miss your life. Don’t be so lost in your head that life goes by and you’re not even here for it, you’re not present. What Erikson said was, we all want to be able to look back and say not that I had a perfect life, but that it was OK. It was good enough.

The post Robert Waldinger, Director of the Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, on What Makes a Good Life appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Tranquility is both a gift of meditation practice and a support for deepening the practice. As a gift, it can be healing and confidence-producing. As a support, it provides a sense of well-being that nourishes concentration and mental harmony. Meditative tranquility is a compelling state that can involve feelings of peace, calm, serenity, contentment, and deep rest. In the body, tranquility is like a deep, clear lake with a wide, still surface. In the mind, it’s like the soft, quiet, fresh air over the lake at dawn.

Tranquility supports mindfulness, and in turn mindfulness is a support for tranquility. As agitation decreases with greater tranquility, mindfulness can become more stable and insightful. And as mindfulness recognizes agitation with a clear, non-conflictive awareness, tranquility grows.

While tranquility can be conducive to sleepiness, well-developed tranquility is an invigorated state similar to waking up refreshed from a good nap. Sometimes partial tranquility slides into complacency, but full tranquility comes with an alert presence. And while the idea of tranquility can seem boring to those unfamiliar with it, in reality it is quite engaging for those who experience it.

In the Buddha’s teachings, tranquility is a supportive condition for happiness that can be characterized as “peaceful happiness.” In meditation, the state of tranquility provides contentment and peace that are the basis for a deep and sublime sense of well-being. This is a happiness that’s not possible when the mind is restless or preoccupied. Tranquility removes the excitement from joy so joy can transform itself into a more satisfying state of happiness.

Tranquility is born when agitation calms down, when conflict is put to rest, and when desires are reduced. Relaxing the body is a primary practice for cultivating tranquility. We can soften the face, release the shoulders, and loosen any tension in the belly. We can also let go of thoughts and relax the “thinking muscle,” letting go of any physical tension, pressure, or agitation associated with thinking. As the body relaxes, anxiety abates. As thinking quiets down, agitation decreases.

The Buddha said that tranquility is the nourishment for tranquility. This can be translated into the idea that tranquility is fostered by paying attention to tranquility, that peace grows by noticing what is peaceful, and that relaxation expands by appreciating relaxation. Being aware of even the smallest amount of tranquility, peace, or relaxation can foster more of these same states. Observing them in others can evoke them in ourselves. Perceiving the tranquility and peace of particular places can suffuse the body with these qualities. Visiting locations with strong atmospheres of tranquility can be medicine for releasing tensions and preoccupations.

In addition to meditation, other supports for tranquility are spending time alone or in nature. Being around calm people also helps. Avoiding multitasking by doing just one thing at a time reduces agitation; doing one thing at a time in an unhurried and undistracted manner can be deeply calming. For some people, talking less or talking more slowly promotes relaxation.

An axiom about tranquility is, “If you need wisdom, try tranquility first.” The more we value being wise in our life, the more valuable it is to be tranquil. With the support of tranquility, what is wise will often be obvious and simple. This is especially true in meditation; everyone has the ability to be wise in meditation provided we are not too agitated to recognize it.

While tranquility is not the ultimate purpose of Buddhist meditation, it is an important part of the path to liberation, which is the ultimate purpose. Tranquility sets the stage for the final stages on the path to liberation. It is considered a factor of awakening that prepares the ground for deep concentration and equanimity. It also prepares the mind for liberation by doing some of the initial work of letting go of what keeps the mind agitated. Becoming tranquil by relaxing tension, quieting agitation, and letting go of discursive thinking is exercising the mind’s capacity to release its attachments. When that capacity is mature, the mind can let go fully. This ultimate letting go comes with a profound sense of peace and happiness that is the greatest fruit of tranquility.

♦

This teaching was originally published on the Insight Meditation Center’s blog.

The post A Satisfying State of Happiness appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

One of the] great benefits of samadhi, [concentration that results from calming the mind], is happiness and inwardly generated happiness. And the Buddha says this kind of pleasure that is found within the well-collected mind should be pursued and developed. It should be cultivated. There is nothing to fear in this inwardly generated delight and happiness.

What the Buddha is speaking about is an internally born happiness rooted in interconnectedness, and there is very profound insight in cultivating this inwardly generated happiness. It alters our relationship to the world of conditions in deeply ethical ways. 

Our relationship to this world of conditions that we all live in is rooted in the externalization both of happiness and unhappiness, and in enchantment with the pleasant conditions and aversion to the unpleasant conditions. We find ourselves endlessly rearranging or trying to rearrange the conditions in our world of the moment, where we have a maximum amount of pleasure and a minimal amount of unpleasantness. We look outward to the world, often with pleading eyes, saying, “Make me happy.” This makes us a consumer of the world. Samadhi is not only a guardian of the mind, it is said to be also a guardian of the world.

In discovering this inwardly generated happiness, the whole surge of craving and aversion begins to calm. We are less entranced with pursuit and avoidance. We are actually protecting the world from the surges and impulses of craving. It’s a deeply ethical cultivation. 

Once this inwardly generated happiness is truly glimpsed and cultivated, we no longer pursue craving, aversion, and clinging, knowing that the world of conditions can indeed bring us so much that is pleasant, so much that is delightful, but does not have the innate capacity to deliver the lasting happiness that we seek and long for.

There are numerous discourses that recommend the development of samadhi as an essential factor in beginning to know things actually as they are, relieving perceptions of our associations rooted in the past, or how we have known something before. They allow us to see anew, and to find a sense of wonder in meeting life as it is. We begin to see very experientially the changing nature of all things, to see the lovely and the unlovely, without generating narrative craving and aversion, to know the breath as a breath, the body as the body as sound, as a sound the thought as a thought. 

The Buddha speaks of samadhi, at times, as being a journey of purification, which is a word that can be charged with reactivity and an association with impurity and purity. This is not what the Buddha means by this process of purification. Instead, what samadhi does, as the mind begins to calm, settle, and deepen, is bring into the light a consciousness of so much that has been unconscious and buried, yet that is still powerful in generating reactivity. We begin to see the arising and passing of patterns, and we begin to know the unbinding from those patterns that can be so powerful in leading to distress. We begin to be less repetitive in our reactions.

In this process of purification—of everything coming into the light of consciousness—we find ourselves less inclined to define ourselves by the contents of our minds. On the ground of samadhi, we begin to cultivate clarity and the power of wise discernment, and to know what is skillful and what is unskillful, what is wholesome and what is unwholesome, what leads to affliction and what leads to the end of affliction, and what liberates and what binds.

The clarity that is formed of samadhi—this capacity to see clearly, to discern clearly—is the beginning of the ending of distress. 

♦

Excerpted from Christina Feldman’s Tricycle Meditation Month Video, “The Benefits of Samadhi.” Watch the full video here and learn more about Meditation Month here.

The post How Samadhi Can Lead to Inner Happiness  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Welcome back for week 3 of Tricycle Meditation Month, our annual challenge to sit all 31 days of January with teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. 

If you’re just joining us, Mingyur Rinpoche is a master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism and the leader of the Tergar Meditation Community, a global network of Buddhist meditation centers. Mingyur Rinpoche is leading a series of four free guided meditation videos on The Bodhisattva’s Path of Meditation, with teachings inspired by Shantideva’s classic text The Way of the Bodhisattva. Each Monday, we will release a new video that builds on the previous week’s teachings.

In this week’s video, Mingyur Rinpoche explains the concept of bodhicitta—bodhi meaning enlightened and citta meaning mind—or the mind of enlightenment. Building off of the previous weeks’ teachings on happiness and the true causes of happiness, Mingyur Rinpoche leads us in a meditation in which we wish that all beings fully recognize their true nature of innate goodness and be free from suffering. This wish to help others and for all beings to be enlightened, he explains, is known as aspiration bodhicitta. Then, if we integrate this wish to benefit others into our practice and our everyday lives, it becomes the application of bodhicitta.

Download a transcript of this talk. It has been edited for clarity.

Meditation Month is free for all participants. Tricycle is here to support your journey with helpful articles, a live call on January 31 with meditation teacher Myoshin Kelley, a Facebook discussion group, and other free resources for meditation and Buddhist practice. Visit tricycle.org/mm22 to learn more.

This week’s Meditation Month articles:

• “One-Breath Meditation” by Ken McLeod
• “Crossing the Ocean” by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, edited by Douglas John Imbrogno
• “Emptying into Spaciousness” by Jakusho Kwong-roshi
• “Jhana: The Spice Your Meditation Has Been Missing” by Dr. Jay Michaelson
• “The Unbinding” by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
• “Why Are We So Hard on Ourselves” by Mark Coleman

To keep up with all of our Meditation Month offerings, sign up for our newsletter using the form below.

♦

The post Meditation Month 2022: Wishing Happiness for All Beings  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Living your best life is a popular expression these days, a pervasive belief that everyone can—and should—be happier by getting what they want. It usually means having more material things, looking beautiful, and having a lifestyle with a lot of leisure time and a rewarding and high-paying job. If you search the hashtag #liveyourbestlife on Instagram, the results include before-and-after photos of weight loss and diet plans; glossy pictures of digital nomads in Bali, Rome, and Belize; yoga moms with their kids in coordinating outfits outside of renovated farmhouses; and advice quotes from tech-startup founders and new age spiritual teachers. Thousands of programs, classes, and books are available to teach us all how to live our best lives, and nearly all purport to tell us how to increase our wealth; land our dream job; find the perfect relationship; be beautiful, fit, and healthy; and feel good all the time. 

Clearly, this idea of living your best life is deeply ignorant, because it’s demonstrably untrue—it’s neither possible nor the best life. It’s impossible because very few of us have the resources or privilege—the time, money, education, social connections, ability—necessary to get an interview for a high-paying prestige profession; go hiking in the rainforest; hire a life coach; or quit a job, find investment capital, and become an entrepreneur. The vast majority of us simply need and want to make a decent living to support ourselves and our families, and to do so in a position that pays fairly and treats us with dignity and respect. In fact, right now, just over eleven percent of Americans live in poverty, and over four percent are currently unemployed. Suggesting that it’s possible for everyone to live this version of a best life is a dangerous and cruel delusion. 

Furthermore, living your best life in this way is actually not the best life because it necessarily means that the life you have is not enough and never will be until you get everything you want. It requires comparing yourself to others who have more than you, and ignoring the blessings that you currently enjoy. This cycle of wanting and getting—the Sanskrit word for it is samsara—is never satisfying because desire and comparison create more desire and comparison, not less. They generate greed, aversion, and delusion—the poisonous root causes of unhappiness and suffering. A real best life is a happy one, which is not the same as getting what you want. Real happiness is freedom from these poisonous roots of suffering, also called neediness, hatred, and ignorance.

The Buddha explained that it’s easy to live a real best life. All we have to do is create the conditions that will end our suffering and create happiness. When we live this real best life, our mind is steady and clear and present-focused, and we’re not swept away by envy or shame, so we don’t have reasons to regret or feel guilty about our actions. We feel content about ourselves and at peace with our life. The way to do this is pretty simple—we just need to appreciate our blessings, cultivate our wholesome qualities, and act compassionately with wisdom for ourselves and each other. 

Appreciation arises just from noticing what we already have. Using mindfulness, we can turn our attention away from what we think we lack or are missing from our life, and instead choose to focus on the healthy, supportive, and positive aspects that we all enjoy. This can include: friends and family who love us; material things that we often overlook, like unlimited potable water from our tap, or warm shoes; shelter from the rain; and inner qualities like kindness, patience, and a warm heart, which we may dismiss or overlook as unimportant. Even if we struggle with illness, experience painful loss, or have other hardships, all of us can balance our difficulties by recognizing our advantages, however small they might seem. Even something as seemingly insignificant as an easeful breath can be a cause for appreciation. 

A real best life is one in which we develop our limitless capacity for love, wisdom, compassion, and joy—what the Buddha called the Four Immeasurables. Cultivating these qualities dispels distressing feelings like jealousy, self-loathing, and boredom. It gladdens our mind and reminds us that we are worthy, loveable, and wise—and so is everyone else. Developing our beautiful qualities deeply connects us with the truth—that all living beings want to be happy and free, just like we do, and all deserve to live their real best life, too. We realize we’re not in competition with anyone else—in fact, we have a true intention that everyone, everywhere, including us, deserve to live their real best life, and it’s a pleasure and an honor to use our wisdom and compassion to help make this happen. 

As we practice the Four Immeasurables, we begin to recognize the deep connection we share with everyone, and we gain confidence in our actions. We learn to use our thoughts, words, and behaviors skillfully, to benefit and not harm ourselves and each other. We notice that our clear communication and ethical behavior has an effect on everyone we encounter, and we begin to accept that we are significant and all that we do matters. This enables us to accept an important truth—that there are tremendous possibilities for positive change and growth for ourselves, society, and the world, now and in the future, and that we can contribute to creating them. 

Because living our real best life is tethered to our intention to be happy and free and to help everyone else be happy and free, we don’t have to feel ashamed, regretful, or guilty, even when we make mistakes or forget our blessings. We can learn from our actions and start again and again. And, as we lead our real best life we naturally feel good because our wholesome qualities expand. We begin to trust ourselves to weather difficulty, sadness, and upset, and to keep a steady mind when we have success, good fortune, or achievement. 

If you think you should be living your best life, consider living your real best life. Everyone, including you, can do this with true contentment, abiding happiness, and deep appreciation for what you have and who you are. If you feel like something is missing, if you’re envious of others, or if you’re comparing yourself to other people, you can begin living your real best life by doing the following meditation. 

1. Shut off your devices, find a quiet spot, and stop talking. Get still and sit comfortably on a chair or the floor or even in your car. Put your hand on your heart and take ten conscious breaths, perhaps deepening your inhales and exhales. 
2. Now think of someone you know who is dissatisfied with their life. It could be someone close to you who complains a lot, or a colleague who’s never satisfied, or even someone you know from the news or the internet. Imagine they’re sitting near you, and silently say these phrases to them, “May you recognize all your good blessings. May you be content and at ease with yourself.” Repeat for five minutes. 
3. Next you can think of yourself. You can put your hand on your heart and feel your presence, or perhaps you imagine yourself as a child. Then give yourself the same kindness, repeating silently to yourself for five minutes, “May I recognize all my good blessings. May I be content and at ease with myself.” 
4. Finally, consider all of us dissatisfied and confused beings who want to be happy and free just like you do. Make a connection with us all—maybe just allowing your heart to open to the life around you, or imagining the living beings on the Earth—and silently say for a few minutes, “May everyone recognize all our good blessings. May we be content and at ease with ourselves.” 
5. You can do this practice whenever you feel like you’re not enough or you’re desperately wishing for something or you’re filled with envy. Try to do it every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Each time you end your meditation, be sure to appreciate your wisdom and compassion, by whispering “thank you” to yourself for your sincere efforts. 

The post Living Your <i>Real</i> Best Life appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Happy New Year, and welcome to week 1 of Tricycle Meditation Month. Throughout January, we invite you to take our annual challenge to commit to a daily meditation practice. Anyone can do it, even if you can only set aside a few minutes. Each week, our Meditation Month teacher, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, will lead a free guided meditation video to help you weave your practice into your life while cultivating awareness, compassion, and wisdom. 

Mingyur Rinpoche is a master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism and the leader of the Tergar Meditation Community, a global network of Buddhist meditation centers. Born in Nepal in 1975, Mingyur Rinpoche began to study meditation as a young boy with his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, a revered Buddhist teacher. For his four-part series, The Bodhisattva’s Path of Meditation, Mingyur Rinpoche will explore Shantideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva. Each video will introduce an approach to meditation inspired by the classic text that builds on the previous weeks’ teachings.

In this first video, Mingyur Rinpoche introduces a practice of equalizing self and others and guides us through a meditation on our desire for happiness and our true nature of innate goodness. He explains how to build a foundation for your practice by focusing on how you share a connection with all other beings and recognizing that we all have a universal wish to be happy and free from suffering. But although we all wish for happiness, we don’t always know its true causes.

Download a transcript of this talk. It has been edited for clarity.

Meditation Month is free for all participants. Tricycle is here to support your journey with helpful articles, a live call on January 31 with meditation teacher Myoshin Kelley, a Facebook discussion group, and other free resources for meditation and Buddhist practice. Visit tricycle.org/mm22 to learn more.

This week’s Meditation Month articles:

• “What We Gain When We Learn to Let Go” by Gil Fronsdal
• “Awakening to Joy” by Pema Düddul
• “A Short Meditation for Caregivers Battling Burnout” by Lama Palden
• “The Art of Slowing Down” by Martin Aylward
• “The Zen of Not Knowing” by Zenkei Blanche Hartman
• “A Practice for Breathing Through Pain” by Radhule Weininger

To keep up with all of our Meditation Month offerings, sign up for our newsletter using the form below.

♦

The post Meditation Month 2022: A Good Place to Start appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Buddhist teachings tell us that the antidote to our propensity for suffering is the noble eightfold path, guidelines that promote ethical conduct infused with compassion and wisdom. Yet in our day-to-day we cling to what we think are the ideal conditions for our personal happiness—the perfect relationship, passion, career, or city to live in that we imagine will bring us fulfillment. The recently released film from Bhutan, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, however, offers cinematic proof for the deeper sources of happiness within us. 

Lunana had its US premiere in January of this year at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and its New York premiere in September as part of the New York Asian Film Festival, which was held virtually. Honored as the opening selection at the Film Festival Della Lessinia in Italy, where it won Best Film, it was recently selected to represent Bhutan at the Oscars in the International Feature Film category. (This is only the second time that the tiny Himalayan nation has had an Oscar entry; the first was Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s movie The Cup, in 1999.)

This understated gem-in-the-rough is the handiwork of Pawo Choyning Dorji, a promising young filmmaker from this Himalayan Buddhist kingdom who learned his craft while assisting renowned lama and filmmaker Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche on the film Vara: A Blessingand later producing Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait. The film draws us into the inner conflict of Ugyen, a young Bhutanese urbanite who sports jeans, a T-shirt with a slogan for Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness initiative, and a big set of headphones that block out the sounds around him. Ugyen dreams of breaking free of the constraints of his homeland for the promise of bigger places (Australia) in pursuit of a big-time singing career. The conflict: Ugyen has one year left on his teaching contract to pay for his government-sponsored degree. (The Bhutanese state meets its mandate to provide quality education for all citizens, regardless of how remote their locale, by offering qualified candidates a free education towards a teaching degree with the expectation that they will serve out a teaching placement equal to twice the time of their schooling.)

Although Ugyen hopes to avoid this final year of service and launch his personal plans, the education ministry assigns him to a post in Lunana, one of the most remote villages in Bhutan and probably the world. On the day of his departure, Ugyen says goodbye to his friends at the bus station and then, wearing his headphones, settles in for the long and bumpy ride north to the village of Gasa. There, he is met by two yak herders from Lunana, who will accompany him the rest of the way on the arduous, high-altitude, eight-day trek.

On the trail, Ugyen’s headphones give out and he finally hears the sounds of the surrounding environment─birdsong and the touching folksong of the yak herders: 

Like milk in a porcelain cup,
The heart is pure.
So pure that even if the cup breaks,
The milk remains milk.

Like water in a vase,
The heart is clear,
So clear that infinite beauty
Is reflected in its depth.

Two hours outside of Lunana, the entire village awaits Ugyen, waving khatas, white ceremonial scarves, to welcome and escort him the rest of the way. This reception, traditionally given to high lamas and royalty, alludes to the esteem with which they hold their new teacher. The villagers deliver Ugyen to the school─a ramshackle room with mud walls and a couple of dust-covered tables. The hopeful children listen expectantly through the unglazed windows, showing no reaction as Ugyen tells the village headman that he wants to leave immediately. The headman agrees to fulfill his request, but only after the pack horses have had a few days of rest.

Of course, what transpires during those days changes our reluctant hero’s mind. The bright-eyed school children, played by the real children of Lunana, become true teachers in this story, as they demonstrate their unfaltering aspiration for a formal education.

With scant teaching supplies, Ugyen relies on his creativity, writing all the lessons directly onto the mud walls using pieces of charcoal. When the children run out of writing paper, Ugyen resupplies them by cutting up the traditional, handmade paper panels that the villagers had installed over his windows as insulation from the cold.

As Ugyen begins to invest himself in teaching, his friends from home send a box of supplies, including a basketball and his guitar. In a scene of pure delight, the children frolic in a circle dance under the stunning Himalayan mountain backdrop as two yak herders serenade them with their favorite folksong and Ugyen heartily sings along playing his guitar. 

Watching, I understood in this scene Dorji was presenting one vision of profound happiness: a happiness uncomplicated by achievements of fame or fortune, grown from an interdependent sense of community and sufficiency mutually created and shared. This idea lies at the heart of Bhutan’s governmental policy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which is an outgrowth of the country’s deeply embedded Buddhist character and identity. The Buddhist view that everything exists in a state of inter-relativity is key to its understanding of happiness. Enduring happiness is not self-centered or acquisition-based, but rather inclusive: happiness that exists in relationship to others and the environment. In this case, happiness generated through Ugyen’s talent and creativity was used to uplift a community in need.

And what is the story of that yak─the permanent fixture in the classroom? His name is Norbu, which means “wish-fulfilling jewel,” a symbol used in Himalayan Buddhist culture to describe one’s lama, or teacher. Although the yak provides an important function for the schoolhouse and the people of Lunana (furnishing a never-ending supply of dung used as fuel for heat), he is in fact a metaphor for Ugyen, who becomes Lunana’s wish-fulfilling teacher.

The film unfolds with the unhurried but steady pacing of a Bhutanese highlander’s trek.  The rough and spare highland conditions─no running water, heat, or electricity─are presented with a touch of humor. The movie crew lived on location in the isolated village of Lunana, at an altitude of over 5,000 meters above sea level, for two months. (Dorji admitted in an interview to having only one shower during the entire duration of shooting.) Some of the actors had never even watched a movie. Because of the lack of electricity, the film was shot using solar-powered batteries. As energy had to be used sparingly, Dorji was unable to engage in the usual process of reviewing the raw, unedited footage before leaving the village. 

Dorji wrote and directed Lunana with a restrained hand, allowing the simplicity and uncontrived kindheartedness of the Bhutanese villagers to speak for itself. But he offers a very direct message to Bhutanese young people to consider how they can invest their knowledge and skills in fulfilling the needs and dreams of their own country and people rather than running off for imagined opportunities abroad. Aside from this particular plea, Lunana reveals universal truths, or dharma, about happiness and self-realization and how harnessing our individual strengths to benefit many is the most rewarding happiness of all.

The post Teaching Happiness  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

What Makes a Happy Life

Mindfulness alone is not enough.

Mindfulness is not enough to live a level-headed existence right in the middle of the storm that is contemporary life. Mindfulness is not enough to find your way through the cyclone of your days. It’s not enough to help you make the tough choices. And here’s the real kicker: it was never meant to be enough.

When the Buddha taught mindfulness, he always taught it as part of a whole. He never said, “Pay attention to your breath and you will be free of suffering.” More like, “Pay attention to your breath as a way of steadying the mind, and then look at your life.”

Look at your life. Closely. Notice your mind states. Notice your heart states. And, also, if you want to be happy, make sure you’re really taking care of things. Like goodness, and sweetness, and love, and compassion. In fact, the Buddha said, goodness, not mindfulness, is the foundation for a happy life.

_{From How Not to Be a Hot Mess: A Survival Guide for Modern Life, by Craig Hase and Devon Hase © 2020. Reprinted with permission of Shambhala Publications. Craig Hase and Devon Hase are the cofounders of SATI Mindfulness, an educational and mentoring program for meditation and mindfulness in North America and Europe.}

Taking Up the Call

We often search for a sense of intrinsic identity. But when we search for a singular, permanent, or independent self, we might find that who we are resists absolute definition. For instance, if we are parents, we are only parents in relationship to our children—in relationship to our parents we are children; when standing in line at the grocery store we are customers; at the dentist we are patients. Yet again we find that things find meaning, function, and characteristics only in dependence upon their respective contexts.

This practice of “looking and not finding” an independent, self-defining “I” is often misconstrued as an attempt to diminish the suffering of a particular identity group, or as an unconscious strategy used to “spiritually bypass” something we don’t want to face, in the name of “transcendence.” But in searching for an autonomous, self-defining identity, we are not undermining the power of relationship and all the joy and suffering that comes along with it. Au contraire. We are taking up the responsibility of knowing ourselves as part of this intricate and sensitive system in which everything we do matters, while reminding ourselves that we are not limited to the labels we assign ourselves.

_{From “Everything Leans: The Creativity of Dependent Arising” by Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel, from A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time, edited by Stephanie Kaza © 2020. Reprinted with permission of Shambhala Publications. Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel is the author of two books on Buddhist teachings and practice, The Power of an Open Question and The Logic of Faith. She has studied and practiced Buddhism for over 30 years under the guidance of her teacher and husband, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.} 

The Day-long Hour

We should make every moment of life worthwhile. Just eating and sleeping, living without purpose, and dying in that state make us “human-manure-producing machines,” according to Zen Master Kodo Sawaki. Even dogs and cats can lead such a life. But it is just too miserable, and it is inexcusable to waste a precious life that way. We can find out if someone is alive by seeing whether he is breathing, but here I refer to a higher level of living.

Those who try wholeheartedly to do what human beings should do through allotted tasks go on living eternally, even after the body dies. (There are various kinds of “allotted tasks.” Seeking wealth, fame, or love is not an allotted task in the Buddhist sense.) As for people who are physically strong and rejoice in their youth, but are self-indulgent and waste time, their body is worth no more than bleached bones lying in a field. Some people live each day as if it had the value of a hundred years. Others may live a hundred years miserably, with as little to show for it as if they had lived only a single day. Some, by discarding what is unnecessary, ennoble themselves; while others, living in degradation, abase themselves. Among so many possibilities, we should try to live at least one day in a manner that gladdens the hearts of the buddhas.

Illness is good; failure is good; let wind and waves be as they are. Growing spirit­ually and becoming more radiant with each passing day, I would like to live every hour as if it were a day. 

_{From Zen Seeds: 60 Essential Buddhist Teachings on Effort, Gratitude, and Happiness by Shundo Aoyama © 2019. Reprinted with permission of Shambhala Publications. Shundo Aoyama, one of the foremost Soto Zen teachers in Japan, serves as advisor to Sojiji Temple near Yokohama city and as chief priest of the Aichi Semmon Niso-do, the certified training temple for female Soto Zen priests, in Nagoya.}

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Radical Responsibility: How to Move Beyond Blame, Fearlessly Live Your Highest Purpose, and Become an Unstop­pable Force for Good by Fleet Maull. Sounds True, May 2019, $22.95, 266 pp., cloth.

Maull, a meditation teacher in the Shambhala and Zen traditions, once faced the prospect of life in prison without parole. (He ended up serving 14 years.) Radical Responsibility is a demon­stration of what Maull has learned and taught over the last three decades. Dozens of guided meditations and opportunities for self-re­flection are offered to help you train your mind and take responsibility for your actions, empowering you to determine your future, no matter where you’ve been or what is happening to you right now.

Here: Poems for the Planet edited by Elizabeth J. Coleman. Copper Canyon Press, April 2019, $18, 240 pp., paper.

Representing over 125 voices, Here: Poems for the Planet is so much more than a poetry collection dedicated to all we stand to lose as the Earth heats up. In addition to five poetry sections on themes such as animals and the next generation, the book also has practical tips from the Union of Concerned Scientists on how to take meaningful action as well as best practices for reaching out to elected officials, organizing public events, and engaging with the media. Copper Canyon Press is an independent nonprofit publisher, and this book was crowdfunded with the intent to distribute a copy to every member of Congress.

How to Stay Human in a F*cked Up World: Mindfulness Practices for Real Life by Tim Desmond. Harper One, June 2019, $24.99, 224 pp., cloth.

“It’s possible to pay attention and care about the suffering in the world without letting it poison us.” This statement is at the heart of the new book by Tim Desmond, a mindfulness teacher, psychotherapist, and longtime student of Thich Nhat Hanh. How to Stay Human in a F*cked Up World shows us that by relating to life’s ever-present pain with compassion, joy, equanimity, and wisdom, we have a fighting chance to experience happiness. Desmond invites us to take our mindfulness practice off the cushion and into the world (which never has been and never will be perfect).

SCHOLAR’S CORNER

Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools by Candy Gunther Brown. University of North Carolina Press, May 2019, $34.95 paper, $100 cloth, 456 pp.

What’s the harm in having kids do mindfulness meditation or sun salutations in homeroom? Plenty, according to Candy Gunther Brown, a professor of religious studies at Indiana University-Bloomington who has served as an expert witness in four legal challenges to these practices in schools. Like many of us, Brown believed that these were secular applications until she examined the historical and religious context for herself. This book is a thorough history of mindfulness and yoga in public schools, related court cases, and legal analysis that led Brown to advocate an opt-in model as a way to maintain the separation of church and state.

WHAT WE’RE REREADING

Bearing Witness: A Zen Master’s Lesson in Making Peace

When Zen master, activist, and Buddhist pioneer Bernie Glassman died in November 2018 at the age of 79, it was the eve of the 23rd annual Bearing Witness retreat at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where an estimated 1.1 million Jews and others were exterminated by the Nazis. Glassman had already been a Zen priest for more than two decades when he started the socially engaged Zen Peacemakers Order in 1994, inspired in part by a “street retreat” he had undertaken on the steps of the US Capitol. One of the Peace-makers’ three tenets became “Bearing Witness” (the others are “Not-Knowing” and “Taking Action” ) or opening your-self to all of life’s joys and sorrows— even the most extreme and inhumane— as a way to heal ourselves and others. “Bearing witness” in this sense has since found a home in the modern Buddhist lexicon, sealing Glassman’s legacy.

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