Contents

Title page and copyright

Practicing Buddhism in Daily Life

Dealing with Anxiety

Buddhism in Modern Society

THE PATH TO HAPPINESS

by Venerable Thubten Chodron

First published in 1999 by

Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore

For free distribution

ISBN 981-04-1336-X

This book is a compilation of talks that Ven. Chodron gave at the Jade Buddha Temple in Houston, Texas.

Copyright © Thubten Chodron

Practicing Buddhism in Daily Life
by Venerable Thubten Chodron©

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spiritual Life and Daily Life

Many people have the misconception that spiritual life or religious life is somewhere up there in the sky -- an ethereal or mystical reality -- and that our everyday life is too mundane and not so nice. Often people think that to be a spiritual person, we must ignore or neglect our everyday life, and go into another, special realm. Actually, I think being a spiritual person means becoming a real human being. Thich Nhat Hanh, a well-known Vietnamese monk, said, "It is not so important whether you walk on water or walk in space. The true miracle is to walk on earth." It's true. In other words, becoming a kind human being is probably the greatest miracle we can perform.

One time I gave a talk in a Hong Kong school to a group of children. One child asked, "Can you bend spoons with your mind?" Another asked, "Has God ever talked to you?" They were very disappointed when I said, "No." I went on to explain that for me a real true miracle is becoming a kind human being. If you have psychic powers but lack a kind heart, the powers are of no use. In fact, they could even be disadvantageous: people may get very upset if they find all their spoons have been bent!

Upon Waking Up

How do we cultivate a kind heart? It is not enough to tell ourselves that we should be nice, because telling ourselves what we should or should not be, feel, or do doesn't make us become that way. Filling ourselves with "shoulds" often just makes us feel guilty because we never are what we think we should be. We need to know how to actually transform our mind. In other words, we must realize the disadvantages of being self-centered. We must truly want to develop a kind heart, not just keep thinking that we should develop a kind heart. In the morning, when we first wake up, before getting out of bed, before thinking about what we will eat for breakfast or which obnoxious jerk we will see at the office, we can start the day by thinking, "Today as much as possible, I won't harm anybody. Today as much as possible I am going to try be of service and benefit to others. Today I want to do all actions so that all living beings can attain the long-term happiness of enlightenment."

Setting a positive motivation the first thing in the morning is very beneficial. When we first wake up, our mind is very subtle and delicate. If we set a strong positive motivation at this time, there is a greater chance of it staying with us and influencing us throughout the day. After generating our positive motivation, we get out of bed, wash, maybe have a cup of tea, and then meditate or recite prayers. By starting the day in this way, we get in touch with ourselves and become our own friend by treasuring and re-enforcing our good qualities.

Finding Time to Meditate Each Day

Sometimes it is difficult to find time to meditate each day. But we always have time to watch TV. We always have time to go shopping. We always have time to get a snack from the refrigerator. Why is it that the 24 hours run out when it is time to meditate? When we understand the value and effect of spiritual practice, then it will become a high priority in our life, and when something is very important, we find time for it. In this way, try to set up a daily meditation practice of maybe 15 or 30 minutes in the morning. To do that, we might have to experience the "incredible sacrifice" of giving up 15 or 30 minutes of television the previous evening so we can go to bed a little earlier. In the same way that we always find time to eat because food nourishes our body, we will find time to meditate and recite some prayers because it nourishes us spiritually. When we respect ourselves spiritually, we respect ourselves as human beings. Nourishing ourselves in that way then becomes a very important priority.

Morning Meditation

In the morning, it is good to begin your meditation session with a few prayers and cultivate the altruistic intention to benefit others by doing the meditation. Then do the breathing meditation for a while. Sit calmly, experience your breath going in and out, and be aware of the breath nourishing you. Just be in the present moment with the breath, and let all the discursive thoughts and worries subside. You may want to chant Kuan Yin's (Avalokiteshvara's) mantra or that of the Buddha. It is helpful to remember the Buddha's qualities at this time for it inspires us to emulate the Buddha's kindness, wisdom and skill in our daily activities. Or you may do an analytic meditation, thinking about the meaning of a particular teaching the Buddha gave and applying it to your own life. This also steers your energy in a very positive direction first thing in the morning.

Some people say, "I have children. How can I meditate or say prayers in the morning when they need my attention?" One way is to get up earlier than your children. Another idea is to invite your children to meditate or chant with you. One time I was staying with my brother's family. My niece, who was about six or seven at that time, used to come into my room because we were the first two to wake up in the morning. As I was reciting prayers or meditating, I explained to her that this is a time when I am quiet and do not want to be disturbed. She would come in and sometimes she would draw. Other times, she would sit in my lap. Several times she asked me to sing to her, and I would chant prayers and mantras out loud. She really liked this and did not disturb me at all.

It is very good for children to see their parents sit still and be calm. That gives them the idea that maybe they too can do the same. If Mom and Dad are always busy, running around, talking on the phone, stressed out, or collapsed in front of the TV, the kids will also be like this. Is this what you want for your children? If you want your children to learn certain attitudes or behaviors, you have to cultivate them yourselves. Otherwise, how will your children learn? If you care about your children, you have to care about yourselves as well and be mindful of living a healthy and balanced life for their benefit as well as for your own.

You can also teach your children how to make offerings to the Buddha and how to recite simple prayers and mantras. Once, I stayed with a friend and her three-year-old daughter. Every morning when we got up, we would all bow three times to the Buddha. Then, the little girl would give the Buddha a present -- a cookie or some fruit -- and the Buddha would give her a present also, a sweet or a cracker. It was very nice for the child, because at age three she was establishing a good relationship with the Buddha and at the same time was learning to be generous and share things. When my friend cleaned the house, did chores or went places with her daughter, they would chant mantras together. The little girl loved the melodies of the mantras. This helped her because whenever she got upset or frightened, she knew she could chant mantras to calm herself down.

Practicing Dharma at the Workplace

Let's return to your daily practice. After your morning meditation, have breakfast and set off for work. How are you going to practice Dharma at work? First, try to remember the kind heart and the motivation you cultivated in the morning. Throughout the day, continually remind yourself that you don't want to harm anybody, that you want to be of service to them, and that you seek to do all actions for the ultimate enlightenment of yourself and others. To remind yourself of this, you can use a frequent event as a trigger to call you back to your motivation. For example, every time you stop at a red light, instead of being irritated and thinking, "Why is this red light so long? I'm late for work!" think, "Today, I want to have a kind heart towards others." Thus the red light becomes an opportunity to remember the kind heart. When the telephone rings, instead of rushing to pick it up, first think, "May I be of service to whomever is on the line." Then answer the phone. Every time your pager goes off, calmly come back to the kind heart, then respond to the call. A friend told me that her trigger to come back to the kind heart was her children calling, "Mommy! Mommy!" Since this happened frequently throughout the day, she became familiar with the kind heart and also was much more patient with her children.

Throughout the day, try to be aware of what you are thinking, feeling, saying, and doing, instead of living on "automatic." When we live on automatic, we go through life reacting to things but never really experiencing what life is about. This is why we feel out of touch with ourselves, like strangers to ourselves. For example, you get in the car and drive to work. When you got to work, if somebody asked you, "What did you think about during the half hour you were driving?" you probably wouldn't know. We are unaware of what is going on inside us. Yet a lot is going on and this influences how we feel about ourselves and how we relate to other people.

Cultivating Mindfulness

The antidote to living on automatic is to cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being aware of what we are thinking, feeling, saying, and doing each moment. It also means being mindful of our ethical values and of the kind heart, so that we can live according to them in our daily lives. By cultivating this awareness, we will no longer be spaced out, just reacting to things, and then wondering why we are so confused and exhausted at the end of the day. If we are mindful, we will notice that we have a kind heart and will enrich it and let our actions flow from it. Or, we might become aware that we are upset, irritated, angry, or are on the verge of scolding somebody. If we realize that, we can come back to our breath, come back to our kind heart, instead of throwing our negative energy out in the world.

Being Mindful of Living in an Interdependent World

We also become more mindful of how we interact with our environment. We realize that we live in an interdependent world, and if we pollute our environment, we are affecting ourselves, our children, and other living beings. Because we are mindful of being kind, we will curtail the ways in which we pollute the environment. We will carpool when going to work or school, instead of using up gasoline in a car by ourselves. We will recycle the things we use: paper, cans, plastic containers, bottles, glass jars, and newspapers. We know that if we throw these away in the garbage, we are destroying our planet and are affecting other beings in a negative way. Thus, we will re-use our plastic bags and paper bags when we go to the supermarket. In addition, we will not leave our air-conditioners or heaters on when we are not home, and will not use products, such as styrofoam whose production releases many pollutants into the air.

I think that if the Buddha were alive today, he would establish vows that said we have to recycle and stop wasting resources. Many of our monastic vows arose because lay people complained to the Buddha about what monks or nuns did. Each time this happened, the Buddha would establish a precept in order to curb the detrimental behavior. If the Buddha were alive today, people would complain to him, "So many Buddhists throw out their tin cans, glass jars, and newspaper! They use disposable cups, chopsticks and plates, which not only make more garbage but also cause the destruction of many trees. They do not seem to care about the environment and the living beings in it!" I would feel pretty embarrassed if I was doing that and someone complained to the Buddha about my behavior, wouldn't you? That's why I think the Buddha would definitely set down vows saying that we have to recycle and to curtail consumption.

Being Mindful of Our Actions

Mindfulness also enables us to be aware if we are about to act destructively as we go through the day. Mindfulness says, "Uh oh! I'm getting angry," or "I'm being greedy," or "I'm feeling jealous." Then we can apply the various antidotes the Buddha taught to help us calm our minds. For example, if we discover we are annoyed and anger is arising, we can stop and look at the situation from the other person's point of view. When we do this, we recognize they want to be happy, and because they aren't happy, they are doing that action we find objectionable. Then instead of harming them out of anger, we will be more compassionate and understanding, and will work with them to negotiate an agreement.

But how do we do this when a quarrel is just about to start or we're already in the middle of one? We have to practice beforehand, in our meditation practice. In the heat of the situation, it is difficult to remember what the Buddha taught if we haven't practiced it already when we were calm and peaceful. In the same way that a football team practices on a regular basis, we need to meditate on patience and to recite prayers daily to get well-trained. Then when we encounter a situation in daily life, we will be able to use the teachings.

Offering Our Food

Another practice to increase our mindfulness and help us remember our motivation is offering our food before we eat. We imagine the food to be blissful wisdom nectar -- something very delicious that increases our bliss and wisdom, not our attachment, when we eat. Then we imagine a small Buddha made of light at our heart. When we eat, we offer this nectar to the Buddha at our heart. The Buddha radiates light that fills us up. To do this, you don't need to sit in perfect meditation position in the middle of a restaurant! You can visualize and contemplate in this way while waiting for the food. While your companions or business associates continue to chat, you can do this visualization and offer your food to the Buddha without anyone knowing. Sometimes, for example, when you're at home with your family, you can pause and focus on offering your food. It's very nice for a family to recite together a prayer offering their food. I stayed with one family and their six-year-old son led us in reciting the prayer. It was very touching.

When you eat, eat mindfully. Be aware of the effort other people put into growing, transporting, and preparing the food. Realize your interdependence with other living beings and how much benefit you have received from them, such as the food we eat. If we reflect in this way before we eat, we will feel very happy and grateful when we eat, and we will eat more mindfully too. And if we eat mindfully, we won't overeat, and then we won't have to spend so much money on special diets to lose weight!

It is important to eat in a dignified manner. Sometimes we see people in a cafeteria line who haven't even paid for the food yet and are already shoveling it in. This is eating on automatic. It resembles a dog who runs to the bowl and slurps up the food. When we do this reflection and offer our food to the Buddha at our heart, we eat slower and are more relaxed. This is how human beings eat.

Reviewing the Day

In this way, we maintain mindfulness and enrich our kind heart as we go through the day. When we come home in the evening, instead of collapsing in front of the TV or dropping on the bed and falling asleep, we can take a few minutes to sit quietly by ourselves. We reflect about and come to terms with what happened during the day. We look back over our day and think, "What went well today? Did I act with a kind heart?" We notice the instances when we acted kindly and rejoice. We dedicate that merit, that positive potential, for the enlightenment of ourselves and others.

In reviewing the day, we may discover that we were angry, jealous, or greedy. We didn't realize it at the time when it was happening. But looking back over the day, we don't feel so good about what happened. It may have been our attitude, or what we said to somebody, or how we acted. To remedy this, we develop regret and do some purification practice so we can forgive ourselves and let that negative energy go. In this way, we "clean up" emotionally and resolve any uncomfortable feelings or misdirected actions that may have arisen during the day. Having done this, our sleep will be peaceful. When you lie down, imagine the Buddha sitting on your pillow and put your head in the Buddha's lap when you go to sleep. This is very comforting and helps you to remember the Buddha's good qualities and to have better dreams.

Our Life Becomes Meaningful

Practicing Dharma is not difficult or time consuming. We always have time; there are always 24 hours in a day. If we direct our mind in a positive direction, we can transform whatever action we do into the path to enlightenment. In this way, the Dharma becomes part of our life in an organic way. Getting up in the morning is Dharma, eating and going to work is Dharma, sleeping is Dharma. By transforming our attitude in the midst of daily activities, our life becomes very meaningful.

Dealing with Anxiety
by Venerable Thubten Chodron©

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Before talking about how to deal with anxiety, let's do a brief meditation that will help us release some of our stress and anxiety. When meditating, sit comfortably. You can cross your legs or sit with your feet flat on the floor. Place the right hand on the left, the thumbs touching so they make a triangle, in your lap against your body. Sit up straight, with your head level, then lower your eyes.

Setting a Positive Motivation

Before we begin the actual meditation, we generate our motivation by thinking, "I will meditate in order to improve myself, and by doing so may I be able to benefit all the beings I come in contact with. In the long term, may I eliminate all defilements and enhance all my good qualities so that I can become a fully enlightened Buddha in order to benefit all beings most effectively." Even though enlightenment may seem a long way off, by generating the intention to transform our mind into one of an enlightened being, we gradually approach that goal.

Meditation on the Breadth

One meditation found in all the Buddhist traditions is the meditation on the breath. It helps to calm the mind, develop concentration, and brings our attention to the present moment. To focus on our breath and really experience what it feels like to breathe, we have to let go of the thoughts that chatter about the past and future and bring our attention simply to what is happening now. This is always more relaxing than the hopes and fears of the past and the future, which exist merely in our mind and are not happening in the present moment.

Breathe normally and naturally -- do not force your breath and do not deep-breathe. Let your attention rest at your abdomen. As you breathe in, be aware of the sensations in your body as the air enters and leaves. Notice that your abdomen rises as you inhale and falls as you exhale. If other thoughts or sounds enter your mind or distract you, just be aware that your attention has strayed, and gently, but firmly, bring your attention back to the breath. Your breath is like home -- whenever the mind wanders, bring your attention home to the breath. Just experience the breath, be aware of what is happening right now as you inhale and exhale. (Meditate for however long you wish.)

The Attitude that Causes Anxiety

When Buddha described the evolution of samsara -- the cycle of constantly recurring problems in which we are presently trapped, he said that its origin was ignorance. This is a specific type of ignorance, one that misunderstands the nature of existence. Whereas things are dependent on other factors and are constantly in flux, ignorance apprehends them in a very concrete fashion. It makes everything seem super-concrete, as if all persons and objects had their own solid essence. We especially make ourselves very concrete, thinking, "Me. My problems. My life. My family. My job. Me, me, me."

First we make our self very solid; then we cherish this self above all else. By observing how we live our lives, we see that we have incredible attachment and clinging to this self. We want to take care of ourselves. We want to be happy. We like this; we don't like that. We want this and we don't want that. Everybody else comes second. I come first. Of course, we're too polite to say this, but when we observe how we live our lives, it is evident.

It is easy to see how anxiety develops because of so much focus on "me." There are over five billion human beings on this planet, and zillions of other living beings throughout the universe, but we make a big deal out of just one of them -- me. With such self-preoccupation, of course anxiety follows. Due to this self-centered attitude, we pay an incredible amount of attention to everything that has to do with me. In this way, even very small things that have to do with me become extraordinarily important, and we worry and get stressed about them. For example, if the neighbor's child does not do their homework one night, we don't get anxious about it. But if our child does not do their homework one night -- it's a big deal! If somebody else's car gets dented we say, "Well, that's too bad," and forget about it. But if our car gets dented, we talk about it and complain about it for a long time. If a colleague is criticized, it doesn't bother us. But if we receive even a tiny bit of negative feedback, we become angry, hurt or depressed.

Why is this? We can see that anxiety is very intricately related to self-centeredness. The bigger this idea that "I am the most important one in the universe and everything that happens to me is so crucial," is, the more anxious we are going to be. My own anxious mind is a very interesting phenomena. Last year, I did a retreat by myself for four weeks, so I had a nice long time to spend with my own anxious mind and know it very well. My guess is that it's similar to yours. My anxious mind picks out something that happened in my life -- it does not make a difference what it is. Then I spin it around in my mind, thinking, "Oh, what if this happens? What if that happens? Why did this person do this to me? How come this happened to me?" and on and on. My mind could spend hours philosophizing, psychologizing and worrying about this one thing. It seemed like nothing else in the world was important but my particular melodrama.

When we are in the middle of worry and anxiety regarding something, that thing appears to us to be incredibly important. It's as if our mind doesn't have a choice -- it has to think about this thing because it's of monumental significance. But I noticed in my retreat that my mind would get anxious about something different every meditation session. Maybe it was just looking for variety! It's too boring to just have one thing to be anxious about! While I was worrying about one thing, it seemed like it was the most important one in the whole world and the other ones weren't as important. That is until the next session arrived, and another anxiety became the most important one and everything else was not so bad. I began to realize it isn't the thing I am worrying about that is the difficulty. It is my own mind that is looking for something to worry about. It doesn't really matter what the problem is. If I'm habituated with anxiety, I'll find a problem to worry about. If I can't find one, then I'll invent one or cause one.

Dealing with Anxiety

In other words, the real issue is not what is happening outside, but what is happening inside of us. How we experience a situation depends on how we view it -- how we interpret what is happening, how we describe the situation to ourselves. Thus the Buddha said that all of our experiences of happiness and suffering don't come from other people or other things, but from our own minds.

Having a Sense of Humor

How do we deal with our minds when we become very self-centered and anxious? It is important to learn to laugh at ourselves. We really do have a monkey mind when it comes to anxiety, don't we? We worry about this and then we worry about that, like a monkey jumping all over the place. We have to be able to laugh at the monkey instead of taking it so seriously and to develop a sense of humor about our problems. Sometimes our problems are pretty funny, aren't they? If we could step back and look at our problems, many of them would seem quite humorous. If a character in a soap opera had this problem or was acting this way, we would laugh at it. Sometimes I do that: I step back and look at myself, "Oh, look how Chodron feels so sorry for herself. Sniff, sniff. There's so many sentient beings having so many different experiences in the universe, and poor Chodron just stubbed her toe."

No Sense Getting Anxious

Thus one antidote is to have a sense of humor and be able to laugh at ourselves. But for those of you who can't laugh at yourselves, there is another way. The great Indian sage Shantideva advised us, "If you have a problem and you can do something about it, there is no need to get anxious about it because you can actively do something to solve it. On the other hand, if there is nothing you can do to solve it, getting anxious about it is useless -- it won't fix the problem. So either way you look at it, whether the problem is solvable or unsolvable, there is no sense in getting anxious or upset about it. Try thinking like that about one of your problems. Just sit for a minute and think, "Is there something I can do about this or not?" If something can be done, go ahead and do that -- there's no need to sit around and worry. If nothing can be done to alter the situation, it is useless to worry. Just let it go. Try thinking like that about a problem that you have and see if it helps.

Not Worrying About Making a Fool of Ourselves

Sometimes we are anxious and nervous before going into a new situation. Afraid that we will make fools out of ourselves, we think, "I may do something wrong, I'll look like a jerk, and everybody will laugh at me or think badly of me." In these cases, I find it helpful to say to myself: "Well, if I can avoid looking like an idiot, I'll do that. But if something happens and I look like an idiot then okay, so be it." We can never predict what other people will think or what they will say behind our back. Maybe it will be good, maybe not. At some point we have to let go and say to ourselves, "Well, that's okay." Now I've also started thinking, "If I do something stupid and people think poorly of me, that's okay. I do have faults and make mistakes, so it's no wonder if others notice them. But if I can acknowledge my mistakes and rectify them as much as possible, then I have fulfilled my responsibility and surely others don't hold my mistake against me."

Paying More Attention to Others

Another way of dealing with anxiety is to lessen our self-centeredness and train our mind to pay more attention to others than to ourselves. This doesn't mean that we ignore ourselves. We need to pay attention to ourselves, but in a healthy way, not in a neurotic, anxious way. Of course we need to take care of our body and we should try to keep our mind happy. We can do this in a healthy and relaxed way by being mindful of what we are thinking, saying and doing. This kind of focus on ourselves is necessary and is part of Buddhist practice. However, it is very different from the self-centeredness that makes us so distressed and restless. That self-centeredness puts undue emphasis on ourselves and thus makes every small thing into a big one.

Considering the Disadvantages of Self-Preoccupation

By considering the disadvantages of self-preoccupation, we will find it easier to let go of that attitude. When it arises in our mind, we will notice it and think, "If I follow this self-centered attitude, it will cause me problems. Therefore, I won't follow that way of thinking and will turn my attention instead to view the situation from a broader perspective, one that encompasses the wishes and needs of everyone involved." Then we can use the same amount of energy to be sensitive to others and develop a kind heart towards them. When we look at others with an open mind, we recognize that everybody wants to be happy and free of suffering as intensely as we do. When opening our hearts to this fact, there will be no space left inside ourselves for self-centered anxiety. Look in your own life, when your heart has been filled with genuine kindness toward others, have you simultaneously been depressed and anxious? It's impossible.

Developing Equanimity

Some people may think, "But I do care about others, and that's what makes me anxious," or "Because I care so much about my kids and my parents, I worry about them all the time." This kind of caring isn't the open-hearted loving-kindness that we are trying to develop in Buddhist practice. This kind of caring is limited to only a few people. Who are the people that we care about so much? All the ones who are related to "me" -- my kids, my parents, my friends, my family." We are right back to "me, me, me" again, aren't we? This kind of caring about others isn't what we are trying to develop here. Instead, we want to learn to care for others impartially, without thinking some beings are more important and others are less worthy. The more we can develop equanimity and an open, caring heart towards all, the more we'll feel close to everyone else and the more we will be able to reach out to them. We have to train our mind in this broad attitude, expanding our care from the small group of people around us so that it gradually is extended to everyone -- those we know and those we don't, and especially to those we don't like.

To do this, start by thinking, "Everyone wants to be happy, just like me, and nobody wants to suffer, just like me." If we focus on that thought alone, there is no space left for anxiety in our minds anymore. When we look at each living being with this recognition and immerse our minds in that thought, our mind will automatically become very open and caring. Try doing this today. Whenever you are looking at people -- for example, when you are in a shop, on the street, in a bus -- think, "This is a living being that has feelings, someone who wants to be happy and doesn't want to suffer. This person is just like me." You will find that you will no longer feel that they are complete strangers. You will feel like you know them in some way and will respect each of them.

Reflecting on the Kindness of Others

Then, if we think about the kindness of others, our mood and the way we see others totally transform. Usually we do not think about others' kindness to us, but our kindness to them. Instead, we focus on the thought, "I care for them and helped them so much, and they don't appreciate it." This makes us very anxious and we start to worry, "Oh, I did something nice for that person, but they don't like me," or "I helped that person, but they don't recognize how much I helped them," or "Nobody appreciates me. How come nobody loves me?" In this way, our monkey mind has taken over the show. We focus so single-pointedly on how kind we have been to others and how little they appreciate us that even when somebody says to us, "Can I help you?" we think, "What do you want from me?" Our self-preoccupation has made us suspicious and unable to see or accept the kindness and love that others genuinely give us.

Kindness of our Friends and Relatives

By meditating on the kindness of others, we will see that we have actually been the recipients of an incredible amount of kindness and love from others. In doing this meditation, first think about the kindness of your friends and relatives, all the different things that they have done for you or given you. Start with the people who took care of you when you were an infant. When you see parents taking care of their kids, think, "Somebody took care of me that way," and "Somebody gave me loving attention and took care of me like that." If nobody had given us that kind of attention and care, we wouldn't be alive today. No matter what kind of family we came from, someone did take care of us. The fact that we are alive attests to that, because as children we could not take care of ourselves.

Kindness of the People who Taught Us

Think about the incredible kindness we received from those who taught us to speak. I visited a friend and her two-year-old child who was learning to speak. I sat there, watching as my friend repeated things over and over again just so her child could learn to speak. To think that other people did that for us! We take our ability to speak for granted, but when we think about it, we see that other people spent a lot of time teaching us how to speak, make sentences, and pronounce words. That is a tremendous amount of kindness we have received from others, isn't it? Where would we be if no one taught us how to talk? We did not learn by ourselves. Other people taught us. Everything we learned throughout childhood and everything we keep learning as adults -- every new thing that comes into our lives and enriches us -- we receive due to the kindness of others. All of our knowledge and each of our talents exist because others taught us and helped us to develop them.

Kindness of Strangers

Then consider the tremendous kindness we received from strangers, people that we do not know. So many beings whom we don't know personally have done things that have helped us. For example, we received an education due to the kindness of people who dedicated their lives to building schools and establishing educational programs. We ride on roads that exist due to the effort of so many engineers and construction workers whom we have never met. We probably do not know the people who built our home, the architects, engineers, construction crew, plumbers, electricians, painters, and so forth. They may have built our home in the summer, enduring the hot weather. We don't know these people, but because of their kindness and effort, we have homes to live in and a temple where we can come and meet together. We don't even know who these people are to say, "Thank you." We just come in, use the buildings, and receive benefit from their effort. Seldom do we consider what they had to go through so that we could live so comfortably.

Deriving Benefit from Harm

Next we reflect on the benefit from those who have harmed us. Although it may seem that they harmed us, but if we look at it in another way, we have received benefit from them. For example, a few years ago someone did something quite mean to me behind my back. At the time, I was very upset and thought, "Oh, this is awful. How could this person do this to me?" Now I realize that I'm glad this situation happened because it opened up a new direction in my life. If this person had not been so unkind to me, I would still be doing what I had done before and would probably be stuck in a rut. But this person's actions pushed me to be more creative. Although initially the situation was very painful, in the long-term, it had a very good effect on my life. It forced me to grow and to develop other talents. So, even the people or situations that we feel are bad can turn out to be good in the long run.

It is interesting to look at some of our present problems from that perspective. Instead of getting anxious about our present problems, think, "Maybe in a few years, when my perspective is broader, I will be able to look back on the people causing this problem and see that it was really a beneficial situation. I will be able to see it as something that propelled me in a new direction." Try to think about your present problems in this way. If we do that, the present anxiety stops, and slowly, our heart will be filled with appreciation for the kindness of others.

Feeling Stuck and Alone in Our Problem

Meditating on the kindness of others is quite important. So sit and do it slowly. Think of all the individuals from whom you have received benefit, even those you do not know, like the people who built your cars, make the books you read, and collect your garbage. Do you know the garbage collectors in your neighborhood? I don't know the ones in my neighborhood. I don't see them. But they are incredibly kind. If they did not take away my garbage every week, I would have a big problem! So many people serve us in countless ways. If we can open our heart and see how much we have received from them, our attitude completely changes. We become very grateful, content, and joyful.

When we are in the middle of a problem, we feel like nobody is helping us. We feel all alone with our problem. But when we do this meditation, we can see that in fact, a lot of people are helping us. More people could even help us if we would open ourselves up to receive from them. If we think like this, our anxiety goes away. We do not feel stuck and alone in our problem because we see that there is actually quite a bit of help and assistance out there.

Overcoming Anxiety by Developing Love and Compassion

After we meditate on the kindness of others, it is easy to feel love and compassion towards them. Love is the wish for sentient beings to have happiness and its causes. Compassion is the wish for them to be free from suffering and its causes. When great love and great compassion are alive in our hearts, we will want to take responsibility to benefit all others and will have a great resolve to do so. From this comes bodhicitta, the altruistic intention to become a Buddha in order to benefit others most effectively. When we have this altruistic intention to become a Buddha, we become a bodhisattva. When we are a bodhisattva, it is guaranteed that we will have no anxiety. Look at Kuan Yin. She looks at all sentient beings and wants them to be happy. She does whatever she is capable of doing to take care of all of us, but she does not get nervous, upset, worried or stressed out. She is able to do what needs to be done to help others and lets the rest go. We never hear of Kuan Yin getting depressed or having anxiety attacks. She is able to handle everything that happens. We can also become that way.

We can look to Kuan Yin for inspiration while we practice the Dharma. She is the embodiment of and represents great love and great compassion towards all living beings. Kuan Yin was once an ordinary being like us, with all of the same confusion and anxiety. Through practicing the path with great effort, she developed such wonderful qualities and became a bodhisattva. If we study the Dharma and practice in the same way, we too can develop qualities just like hers.

Buddhism In Modern Society
by Venerable Thubten Chodron©

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Appreciating Our Advantageous Circumstances

We are extraordinarily fortunate to have the circumstances for Dharma practice that are presently available to us. In both 1993 and 1994 I went to Mainland China on a pilgrimage and visited many temples there. Seeing the situation of Buddhism there made me appreciate the fortune we have here. However, we often take our freedom, material prosperity, spiritual masters and the Budda's teachings for granted and are blind to the wonderful opportunity that we have to practice. For example, we take for granted our ability to gather together to learn the Dharma. But this is not the case in many places. For example, when I was on a pilgrimage at Jiu Hua Shan, Kshitigarbha's Holy Mountain, the abbess of a nunnery asked me to give a talk to the pilgrims there. But my friends from Shanghai who were traveling with me said, "No, you can't do that. The police will come and all of us will get in trouble." We had to be careful about even an innocent activity like teaching the Dharma. Only when the abbess said that she was a friend of the police did my friends say it was safe for me to teach.

It is important that we reflect on the advantages and good circumstances that we have to practice right now. Otherwise, we will take them for granted and they will go to waste. We tend to select one or two small problems in our life, emphasize them, and blow them out of proportion. Then we think, "I can't be happy. I can't practice the Dharma," and this thought itself prevents us from enjoying our life and making it meaningful. We human beings are very funny: when something bad happens in our lives we say, "Why me? Why is this happening to me?" But when we wake up every morning and are alive and healthy and our family is well, we never say, "Why me? Why am I so fortunate?"

Not only should we open our eyes to all the things that are going right in our lives, but also we should recognize that they are results of our own previously-created positive actions or karma. It is helpful to think, "Whoever I was in a previous life, I did a lot of positive actions which make it possible for me to have so many good circumstances now. So in this life I should also act constructively by being ethical and kind so that in the future such fortune will continue."

Appreciating Our Problems

Appreciating our advantageous circumstances is important as is appreciating our problems. Why appreciate our problems? Because the difficult situations in our lives are the ones that make us grow the most. Take a minute and think about a difficult time in your life, a time when you had a lot of problems. Didn't you learn something valuable from that experience? You wouldn't be the person you are now without having gone through those difficulties. We may have gone through a painful time in our life, but we came out the other side with stronger inner resources and a better understanding of life. Seen in this way, even our problems enable us to become better people and aid us on the path to enlightenment.

Before we take refuge in the Three Jewels -- the Buddhas, the Dharma, and the Sangha -- it is helpful to visualize them in the space in front of us. That is, we imagine the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhats in a pure land. We are there too, surrounded by all sentient beings. A pure land is a place where all the circumstances are conducive to practicing the Dharma. When I visualized being in a Pure Land, I used to imagine only the people I liked and left out the people with whom I felt uncomfortable, threatened, insecure, or fearful. It was nice to imagine being in a place where everything was very pleasant and it was easy to practice the Dharma.

But one time when I was visualizing the pure land, all the people who were giving me problems were there too! I recognized that if a pure land is a place conducive for Dharma practice, then I also need the people who harm me to be there, because they help me to practice. In fact, sometimes those who harm us help us more to practice the Dharma than those who help us. The people who help us, give us gifts, and tell us how wonderful, talented, and intelligent we are often cause us to get puffed up. On the other hand, the people who harm us show us very clearly how much resentment and jealousy we have and how attached we are to our reputations. They help us to see our attachments and aversions and they point out the things we need to work on in ourselves. Sometimes they help us even more than our teachers do in this respect.

For example, our Dharma teachers tell us, "Try to forgive other people, try not to be angry. Jealousy and pride are defilements, so try not to follow them because they will cause you and others difficulties." We say, "Yes, yes, that's true. But I don't have those negative qualities. But the people who harm me are very resentful, jealous, and attached!" Even though our Dharma teachers point out our faults to us, we still don't see them. But when people with whom we don't get along point out our faults to us, we have to look at them. We can't run away anymore. When we're outrageously angry or burning with jealousy or attachment is eating away at us, we can't deny that we have these negative emotions. Of course, we try to say that it's the other person's fault, that we have these horrible emotions only because they made us have them. But after we've listened to the Buddha's teachings, this rationale doesn't work any more. We know in our hearts that our happiness and suffering come from our own mind. Then, even though we try to blame our difficulties on other people, we know we can't. We are forced to look at them ourselves. And when we do, we also see that they are incredible opportunities to grow and learn.

The bodhisattvas, who sincerely wish to practice the Dharma, want to have problems. They want people to criticize them. They want their reputation to get ruined. Why? They see problems as wonderful opportunities to practice. Atisha, a great bodhisattva in India, helped to spread Buddhism to Tibet in the 11th century. When he went to Tibet, he took his Indian cook with him. This cook was very disagreeable, speaking harshly and being rude and obnoxious to people. He even regularly insulted Atisha. The Tibetans asked, "Why did you bring this person with you? We can cook for you. You don't need him!" But Atisha said, "I do need him. I need him to practice patience."

So when someone criticizes me I think, "He is an incarnation of Atisha's cook." One time I was living in a Dharma center and had big problems with one person there, let's call him Sam. I was so happy when I left that place to go back to the monastery and see my spiritual master. My master knew of my difficulties and asked me, "Who is kinder to you: the Buddha, or Sam?" I immediately replied, "Of course the Buddha is kinder to me!" My teacher looked disappointed and proceeded to tell me that Sam was actually much kinder to me than the Buddha! Why? Because I couldn't possibly practice patience with the Buddha. I had to practice with Sam, and without practicing patience there was no way I could become a Buddha, so I actually needed Sam! Of course, that wasn't what I wanted my teacher to say! I wanted him to say, "Oh, I understand, Sam is a horrible person. He was so mean to you, you poor thing." I wanted sympathy, but my teacher didn't give it to me. This made me wake up and realize that difficult situations are beneficial because they force me to practice and find my inner strength. All of us are going to have problems in our lives. This is the nature of cyclic existence. Remembering this can help us to transform our problems into the path to enlightenment.

Dharma Practice in Modern Society

This is an important aspect of Buddhism in modern society. Dharma practice isn't just coming to the temple; it's not simply reading a Buddhist scripture or chanting the Buddha's name. Practice is how we live our lives, how we live with our family, how we work together with our colleagues, how we relate to the other people in the country and on the planet. We need to bring the Buddha's teachings on loving-kindness into our workplace, into our family, even into the grocery store and the gym. We do this not by handing out leaflets on a street corner, but by practicing and living the Dharma ourselves. When we do, automatically we will have a positive influence on the people around us. For example, you teach your children loving-kindness, forgiveness, and patience not only by telling them, but by showing it in your own behavior. If you tell your children one thing, but act in the opposite way, they are going to follow what we do, not what we say.

Teaching Children by Example

If we're not careful, it is easy to teach our children to hate and never to forgive when others harm them. Look at the situation in the former Yugoslavia: it is a good example of how, both in the family and in the schools, adults taught children to hate. When those children grew up, they taught their children to hate. Generation after generation, this went on, and look what happened. There is so much suffering there; it's very sad. Sometimes you may teach children to hate another part of the family. Maybe your grandparents quarreled with their brothers and sisters, and since then the different sides of the family didn't speak to each other. Something happened years before you were born -- you don't even know what the event was -- but because of it, you're not supposed to speak to certain relatives. Then you teach that to your children and grandchildren. They learn that the solution to quarreling with someone is never to speak to them again. Is that going to help them to be happy and kind people? You should think deeply about this and make sure you teach your children only what is valuable.

This is why it's so important that you exemplify in your behavior what you want your children to learn. When you find resentment, anger, grudges, or belligerence in your heart, you have to work on those, not only for your own inner peace but so you don't teach your children to have those harmful emotions. Because you love your children, try to also love yourself as well. Loving yourself and wanting yourself to be happy means you develop a kind heart for the benefit of everybody in the family.

Bringing Loving-Kindness to the Schools

We need to bring loving-kindness not only into the family but also into the schools. Before I became a nun, I was a schoolteacher, so I have especially strong feelings about this. The most important thing for children to learn is not a lot of information, but how to be kind human beings and how to resolve their conflicts with others in a constructive way. Parents and teachers put a lot of time and money into teaching children science, arithmetic, literature, geography, geology, and computers. But do we ever spend any time teaching them how to be kind? Do we have any courses in kindness? Do we teach kids how to work with their own negative emotions and how to resolve conflicts with others? I think this is much more important than the academic subjects. Why? Children may know a lot, but if they grow up to be unkind, resentful, or greedy adults, their lives will not be happy.

Parents want their children to have a good future and thus think their children need to make a lot of money. They teach their children academic and technical skills so that they can get a good job and make lots of money -- as if money were the cause of happiness. But when people are on their deathbed, you never hear anybody wishfully say, "I should have spent more time in the office. I should have made more money." When people have regrets about how they lived their life, usually they regret not communicating better with other people, not being kinder, not letting the people that they care about know that they care. If you want your kids to have a good future don't teach them just how to make money, but how to live a healthy life, how to be a happy person, how to contribute to society in a productive way.

Teaching Children to Share with Others

As parents you have to model this. Let's say your children come home and say, "Mom and Dad, I want designer jeans, I want new rollerblades, I want this and I want that because all the other kids have it." You say to your children, "Those things won't make you happy. You don't need them. It won't make you happy to keep up with the Lee's." But then you go out and buy all the things that everybody else has, even though your house is already filled with things you don't use. In this case, what you are saying and what you are doing are contradictory. You tell your children to share with other children, you don't give things to charities for the poor and needy. Look at the homes in this country: they are filled with things we don't use but can't give away. Why not? We're afraid that if we give something away we might need it in the future. We find it difficult to share our things, but we teach children that they should share. A simple way to teach your children generosity is to give away all the things you haven't used in the last year. If all four seasons have gone by and we haven't used something, we probably won't use it the next year either. There are many people who are poor and can use those things, and it would help ourselves, our children, and the other people if we gave those things away.

Another way to teach your children kindness is to not buy everything that you want. Instead, save the money and give it to a charity or to somebody who is in need. You can show your children through your own example that accumulating more and more material things doesn't bring happiness, and that it's more important to share with others.

Teaching Children About the Environment and Recycling

Along this line, we need to teach children about the environment and recycling. Taking care of the environment that we share with other living beings is part of the practice of loving kindness. If we destroy the environment, we harm others. For example, if we use a lot of disposable things and don't recycle them but just throw them away, what are we giving to future generations? They will inherit from us bigger garbage dumps. I'm very happy to see more people reusing and recycling things. It is an important part of our Buddhist practice and an activity that temples and Dharma centers should take the lead in.

The Buddha did not comment directly on many things in our modern society -- such as recycling -- because those things didn't exist at his time. But he talked about principles that we can apply to our present situations. These principles can guide us in deciding how to act in many new situations that didn't exist 2,500 years ago.

New Addictions in the Modern Society

However, the Buddha did talk directly about intoxicants and discouraged us from using them. At the time of the Buddha, the chief intoxicant was alcohol. However, extrapolating on the principle he set down, the advice against intoxicants also refers to using recreational drugs or misusing tranquilizers. If we take this a step further, we have to observe our relationship to the biggest intoxicant in our society: television. As a society, we are addicted to TV. For example, after getting home from work, we're tired and want to relax. What do we do? We sit down, turn on the TV, and space out for hours, until we finally fall asleep in front of it. Our precious human life, with its potential to become a fully enlightened Buddha, gets wasted in front of the TV! Sometimes certain TV programs are far worse intoxicants than alcohol and drugs, for example, programs with a lot of violence. By the time a child is 15-years-old, he or she has seen thousands of people die on the television. We're intoxicating our children with a violent view of life. Parents need to select the TV programs they watch with a lot of care, and in that way be an example to their children.

Another big intoxicant is shopping. You may be surprised to hear this, but some psychologists are now researching addiction to shopping. When some people feel depressed, they drink or use drugs. Other people go to the shopping center and buy something. It's the same mechanism: we avoid looking at our problems and deal with our uncomfortable emotions by external means. Some people are compulsive shoppers. Even when they don't need anything, they go to the mall and just look around. Then buy something, but return home still feeling empty inside.

We also intoxicate ourselves by eating too much or eating too little. In other words, we handle our uncomfortable emotions by using food. I often joke that in America the Three Jewels of Refuge are the TV, the shopping center, and the refrigerator! That's where we turn when we need help! But these objects of refuge don't bring us happiness and in fact make us more confused. If we can turn our mind to the Buddhas, the Dharma, and the Sangha, we'll be a lot happier in the long-run. Even in this moment, our spiritual practice can help us. For example, when we are tired or stressed out, we can relax our mind by chanting the Buddha's name or by bowing to the Buddha. While doing this, we imagine the Buddha in front of us and think that much radiant and peaceful light streams from the Buddha into us. This light fills our entire body-mind and makes us very relaxed and at ease. After doing this for a few minutes, we feel refreshed. This is much cheaper and easier than taking refuge in the TV, shopping mall, and refrigerator. Try it!!