In How to Solve our Human Problems, Geshe-la explains there are three times we need to practice patience.  When we encounter unavoidable suffering, we practice the patience of acceptance.  When we are practicing Dharma, we practice the patience of definitely thinking about Dharma.  And when we are harmed, we practice the patience of non-retaliation.

Now Shantideva turns to the practice of the patience of definitely thinking about Dharma.  He does so in particular with respect to our study and practice of the teachings on emptiness.  Why?  Because we usually find these the hardest.  The most important thing to keep in mind is the harder any given topic of Dharma is, the more important it will be for our eventual liberation.  Why?  Because it is hard only because our mind is currently far away from the wisdom realizing this particular aspect of Dharma.  Things that are easy to grasp will not move our mind very much because our mind is already quite close to this wisdom; but the things that are hard will require massive restructuring of our way of thinking before this new Dharma wisdom will dawn in our mind.  I remember when I first started practicing Dharma, I really enjoyed and connected with all of the teachings except those related to faith.  For me, faith was only for those who cannot think for themselves and I rejected it.  Now faith is the lifeblood of my practice, and this change has changed everything for me.

This section is on the patience of definitely thinking about Dharma.  Shantideva is very clever in the way he teaches it.  The basic idea of this patience is we need to practice patience when studying Dharma subjects.  When we study Dharma, very often we have difficulty understanding what is being said, especially when it is very difficult subjects, like emptiness.

At such times, we should practice joyful acceptance of the fact that we don’t yet understand, but continue to apply ourselves fully understanding the importance of one day gaining a realization.  When we don’t understand things, we often get impatient and our mind blocks and we become discouraged or incapable of understanding anything.  This actually comes from an impatience in our mind that expects to understand very profound subjects easily.  This patience encourages us to accept where we are at, even when we don’t understand, and to joyfully keep trying.

So why is Shantideva clever in the way he teaches this subject?  He goes into a very complicated explanation of emptiness, and a debate between various philosophical schools, which we generally don’t understand at all.  This gives rise to the very impatience Shantideva is trying to encourage us to overcome!!

(6.22) I do not become angry when the cause of suffering
Is something inanimate, such as sickness;
So why become angry with animate causes,
For they too are all controlled by other conditions?

We think there is a difference between animate and inanimate causes of our suffering.  We realize there is no point in getting angry at a storm because it is just arising from causes and conditions.  In the same way, there is no reason for getting angry with others when they harm us because that too is just arising from causes and conditions.  There is actually no difference.

The key to understanding this is to realize that delusions function to make the mind uncontrolled.  So when animate objects (in other words, living beings) harm us in some way it is no different than the storm thundering in the sky.  It is just a situation of certain causes and conditions coming together and the person who gets angry is nothing more than a puppet on the string of their delusions.  They are the victim of their delusions.  Their delusions are propelling them to engage in wrong actions, but they will be the ones who have to suffer the karmic consequences.  We think they have free will and they can choose to not be deluded.  Only those who have not actually tried to overcome their delusions would make such a statement.  I, for example, don’t ever want to get angry, but anger arises in my mind without choice.  I try generate the Dharma opponents to my anger, but the anger remains despite my best efforts to remove it.  A few years ago I was filled with an uncontrollable rage towards my father.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake it until eventually I was very fortunate to receive some powerful blessings which enabled me to let go.  We have the Dharma and we find it hard to let go, what need is there to say of somebody who knows nothing of the Dharma and whose mind is completely seized by delusions?  It’s not their fault.  If anything, it is the fault of our own negative karma which is impelling them to harm us.

(6.21) Moreover, suffering has many good qualities.
Through experiencing it, we can dispel pride,
Develop compassion for those trapped in samsara,
Abandon non-virtue, and delight in virtue.

Suffering has good qualities for those intent on following and completing a spiritual path.  If our motivation is worldly, in other words our main goal is to secure for ourselves worldly happiness in this life, then suffering is an unambiguous bad.  If, however, our intention is to follow and complete a spiritual path leading to permanent liberation and enlightenment, then suffering is spiritual fuel.  Just as a car cannot go forward without gasoline, so too a spiritual life cannot progress without suffering.  The truth is simple:  we are lazy.  When life is good, we feel no need to practice Dharma.  But when we are confronted with real suffering, then we realize ordinary solutions don’t work and our desire to practice Dharma becomes intense.  We see it as the only real solution to our problems, both temporarily and ultimately.

People whose primary motivation is spiritual are not afraid of suffering.  When suffering arises, they welcome it because they appreciate its usefulness and many good qualities.  Geshe-la said “we should learn to enjoy our suffering” because so many good things arise from it.  We must try and learn from suffering, not to run away from it.  This does not mean we should seek out suffering.  Suffering will come naturally because we are in samsara.  Obviously if we can avoid the suffering that arises, we should do so and there is no fault in doing so.  But for all unavoidable suffering, we should wholeheartedly welcome it as a gift from our Spiritual Guide and our Dharma Protector.  They are providing for us the conditions we need to make the next step on the spiritual path.

At present we worry about suffering.  We worry about what may happen to us.  In particular, we are very attached to certainty of knowing what is going to happen to us, and so we stress and we plan.  We think certain possibilities are good and others are to be avoided at all costs.  Why?  Every situation is equally empty, so every situation is equally transformable.  No one situation, one place, one job, one partner is better than any other.  Most of the time we go through life trying to manage our attachments and aversions.  True freedom is learning how to equally enjoy any possibility that may arise.  When we are forced to confront unavoidable suffering, we are given the opportunity to expand our mind in this way.  When we believe all of our suffering is emanated for us by Dorje Shugden then we know even though it is unpleasant, it is exactly what we need.  This doesn’t mean Dorje Shugden causes our suffering, rather it means we have the karma to suffer, but he gives us the wisdom blessings necessary to transform it into something useful.  Somebody who has the mind of patience is comfortable with uncertainty, in fact they embrace it, because they know it will be the fuel of their practice.

If we run away from our suffering and not accept it, then we’re going to be stuck in samsara forever.  That’s definite.  We will still grasp at some set of karmic appearances being good and others being inherently bad.  Samsara is not our external world.  Samsara is our delusions.  Our delusions wrongly grasp at external good and bad, and therefore they trap us.  Wisdom realizes every situation is equally good, just in different ways.  Freedom is being able to go anywhere with anybody experiencing anything and finding it all equally useful for our spiritual development.  I am not saying we run towards our suffering, but we stop running away from it and avoiding it and worrying what may happen to us.  Running away from it is not just a physical action, in fact it is primarily mental.  We mentally do not “welcome” the suffering in our life, rather we use all of our mental energy to try push it away and figure out how we can avoid it all while grasping at it as being inherently bad.  Such thinking misses the point of why these situations are being emanated.  We need to put all that to one side and stop worrying.

We can’t run away from suffering because it’s going to come our way anyway. That’s what we’ve got to accept about samsara.  We’re still not accepting life in samsara is the nature of suffering. We can’t change that fact. Suffering will never come to an end within samsara.  If we’re in samsara that is what we have to experience. We can’t change that. So we accept it, whatever comes our way, we accept, and then we use it, we use it to enhance our progress along the spiritual path, for example by dispelling our pride, developing renunciation, compassion, and so forth.

There is no meaning in rejecting suffering.  For ordinary people, when suffering arises they just try to avoid it, but then more comes and more and it is endless.  If instead we develop the courage to welcome it, confront it, then we can use it and we can finally bring suffering to an end.  We can do this if we recognize the good qualities of suffering.  It does require a tremendous amount of familiarity, starting off by voluntarily enduring or accepting minor sufferings, and then increasing our capacity until we can endure major ones.  But if we persevere in this practice, we will eventually succeed.  Then we will know true freedom.

(6.19) Whenever I experience hardship,
I should fight my delusions, such as anger;
And whenever I experience physical pain,
I should use wisdom to maintain a pure and peaceful mind.

(6.20) Those who disregard all suffering
To destroy the foes of anger and so forth
Are the true conquerors worthy of the name “hero”;
Other so-called heroes merely slay corpses.

There are two main pieces of advice Shantideva is giving us here:  First, we should use every experience of suffering to strengthen our determination to win the war against our delusions.  This is called armour-like effort, where the more we suffer the more motivated we are to practice.  Second, we need to be ready to endure whatever difficulties there may be in the name of completing the path.  This is called the power of steadfastness.  Athletes, business people, soldiers, etc., are ready to endure enormous suffering and difficulty to accomplish worldly goals.  As Bodhisattvas, we should be willing to endure any difficulty on the path because the cause we are working for is so great.  A Bodhisattva will happily do so, knowing that because they have the courage and strength to do so, countless living beings will become freed from their suffering.

We have difficulty doing this because our attachment to pleasant feelings and worldly concerns is stronger than our spiritual intentions.  Our self-cherishing makes us concerned only about our happiness and our immediate freedom from our difficulties.  We give in to this, and as a result remain forever trapped.  If we want to break out of our delusions we have to be willing to endure temporary difficulty to gain long term freedom.  If we don’t, we will endure temporary difficulties forever and never break free.  This is our choice.  Kadampa’s see this is the choice and happily endure the difficulties, knowing they are bound for freedom and the ability to lead others to the same sate.

Some people mistakenly feel situations which provoke delusions are obstacles to our spiritual practice.  Quite the opposite, it is those situations that normally provoke delusions which are our opportunities to practice.  Every situation that provokes a delusion in us is an opportunity to train in its opponent.  Once again, we need to make a distinction between the ripening of a deluded tendency similar to the cause and generating a new mental action of a delusion.  A new action of a delusion follows a simple formula:  deluded tendency + assenting to it as being true = mental action of delusion.  If a deluded tendency for anger, for example, ripens, and we subsequently assent to that tendency as being true (strongly believing this external thing is indeed a cause of our suffering and wishing to harm that external thing), then we generate a new mental action of a delusion.  But if a deluded tendency ripens but we respond to it by NOT believing it to be true, and instead by generating the opponent to that delusion, then far from generating a new delusion, we actually just engaged in the virtuous action of the “moral discipline of restraint.”  This mental action creates the cause for upper rebirth and plants new tendencies on our mind which will make virtuous responses increasingly natural in the future.  If situations which normally give rise to delusion are in fact opportunities to practice, then quite literally there is no such thing as an obstacle to our Dharma practice.

There will be times when we experience physical pain, such as stubbing a toe or even having cancer.  At such times, our main practice should be to recall the wisdom of emptiness.  Quite simply, we try break the identification with our body.  If our friend stubs their toe, does it hurt us?  No.  Why?  Because we are not identifying with that toe as our own.  Yet when we stub our toe it hurts.  Why the difference?  Because we are identifying with our toe as being our own.  Every time we experience any pain, we should think, “not my body.”  We can observe the pain, but not identify with it as being our own.  If we see somebody hurt in a movie, we don’t experience any pain because we are in the audience.  In the same way, when we see this body being hurt, we should take a step back into the theater of the clear light emptiness and observe from a distance the movie of the hurt body.  I have a friend who has fibromyalgia, which is an experience of constant bodily pain.  She wrote Geshe-la asking for advice, and he said, “meditate on the emptiness of your body.”  This can be accomplished through breaking our identification with our body or dissolving our body into clear light by meditating on its emptiness.

Another useful way of doing this is to try “find the pain.”  The interesting thing about pain is the more you go looking for it, the more it disappears.  Very often doctors will ask us, “where does it hurt?”  And we point to our arm.  But don’t be satisified with such generalized identification, try identify exactly where it hurts.  When you probe deeper and deeper you can’t actually find the pain anywhere, and it goes away.  I agree, this is not easy; and I agree, it won’t work perfectly right away.  But if we are persistent with this practice, it does become more and more effective.  This does not mean we shouldn’t still take pain killers if we have them, but it does mean we can also apply the ultimate pain killer of the wisdom realizing emptiness.

Defeating external enemies does not make us a hero.  A true hero is able to defeat the internal enemies of their delusions.  Those who have done so are true conquerors, and their victory has actual meaning.

(6.16) I should not become impatient
With heat and cold, wind and rain,
Or sickness, confinement, or beatings;
For, if I do, the pain will only increase.

We try then to increase our capacity to experience suffering with a patient mind.  We all have to start somewhere, build and increase that capacity, until eventually we are able to accept all the sufferings of human life.  When we have patient acceptance, it is not that there is a hardness of mind, we become so tough that nothing gets through to us.  Rather, it’s that there is no longer any resistance, any rejection in our mind. There’s actually an openness of mind.  Accommodating.  Open, accommodating, and peaceful.  And in this way, our mind becomes stronger.

How do we reconcile renunciation and patient acceptance?  It seems that acceptance says we should accept whatever suffering, whereas renunciation says we need to reject all suffering.  Actually, the mind of patient acceptance is the foundation of renunciation.  How so?  Renunciation can only arise in the mind of somebody who has accepted, fully and completely, that samsara is the nature of suffering.  As long as we are holding out that happiness can be found within it, we will not be sufficiently motivated to get out.  It is by fully accepting samsara is the nature of suffering that we become prepared to leave it behind.  Not accepting suffering is the same as thinking samsara should be giving us happiness.

Renunciation is developed with a very simple mathematical formula:  patient acceptance + correct identification of the problem = renunciation.  If we grasp at “samsara” as being some inherently existent external world, then we will develop aversion for everything in our lives.  Aversion is not renunciation, it is a delusion.  We have to correctly identify what our problem is, namely our delusions.  Samsara is not the world, it is the world as seen and experienced through the lens of our delusions.  More precisely, it is the world projected by our delusions.  The mind of renunciation is a wisdom that understands delusions can never fix the problems created by delusions.  It is a wisdom that understands deluded, impure glasses will perceive a deluded, impure world; but pure glasses will perceive a pure world.  By purifying our mind and abandoning all delusions, the world created by our delusions will simply cease to appear; and in its place, a new, pure world will appear.

The world we currently perceive is the karmic echo of our past delusions.  This karma is ripening, so we must accept it for what it is.  What gives us the power to accept is our ability to use everything, good or bad, for our spiritual progress.  Each contaminated appearance is another reminder to abandon our delusions.  If we are pushing away our suffering, or rejecting it, then we are not using it.  I would go so far as to say the mind that can patiently accept everything is, functionally speaking, liberation since if we can accept our difficulties they are no longer experienced as “suffering.”  A mind that can accept everything is a mind free from all suffering.

(6.17) Some, when they see their own blood,
Become even stronger and braver;
While for others, just seeing someone else’s blood
Causes them to become weak and even to faint!

(6.18) Both these reactions depend on the mind –
Whether it is strong or it is weak –
So I should disregard any harm that befalls me
And not allow myself to be affected by suffering.

We need to make a clear distinction between what is hard to do and that which is worth doing.  Many people when they hear about the path and overcoming delusions object saying, “but it is so hard.”  Yes, it is hard.  But what does that have to do with anything?  Just because it is hard does not mean it is not worth doing.  The real question is, “what is harder:  doing the path or not doing the path?”  It is far harder to not do the path because then we remain in samsara forever.  Following the path is hard, but it has an end to it and will deliver us from all suffering.  Not following the path might be easier in the short-run, but is infinitely harder in the long-run.  In short, we have no rational choice to not practice.

I’ll admit it, I like war movies and I like the Rocky movies.  These movies always follow the same pattern.  An underdog confronts nearly insurmountable odds, but through the force of their perseverance and ingenuity, they overcome and emerge victorious.  There is always some point where they face the prospect of defeat, then dig deep and give it that extra effort which pushes them through.  Samsara will knock us down – again and again.  Sometimes really hard.  Just as we get up, it will knock us down yet again.  But the hero never gives up, they keep getting up as many times as it takes.  In World War II, in the darkest days of the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill famously came out and simply said, “Never give up!  Never give up!  Never give up!” and then he went back inside.  That is the mind we need.

I believe to attain enlightenment we only need two things:  armor-like effort and the power of perseverance.  Armor-like effort is a mind that the more it is hit the more determined it is to keep up the fight.  The power of perseverance is a Winston Churchill like mind which will never give up, no matter how long it takes and no matter what the cost.  If we have these two, the mind of patient acceptance comes easy.  With patient acceptance, problems are no longer “suffering.”  On this basis, nothing can stop us from completing the path.

(6.14) There is nothing that is not easy to accomplish
If we develop familiarity with it;
So first I should learn to forbear small sufferings
And then gradually endure greater ones.

(6.15) This can be seen in those who voluntarily endure minor sufferings,
Such as animal or insect bites,
Feelings of hunger or thirst,
Or irritations of the skin.

Modern life is full of countless minor irritations.  From the moment our alarm goes off in the morning until having to get up to pee in the middle of the night, the entire day is filled with one minor annoyance after another.  There is almost nobody who does not awake with a groan, wishing to sleep some more.  Our morning practice is often filled with distractions, sleepiness, or little feeling.  We then have to get into uncomfortable clothes, such as a suit, or uncomfortable shoes, to go to work.  We then have to fight traffic only to arrive at work with an inbox filled with tasks to do and nonsense to sort through.  We have to attend mind-numbing meetings where we listen to those who go off on tangents irrelevant to the group or simply like to hear themselves speak.  We never have everything we need to complete our tasks, so they pile up, deadlines are missed and we feel constant pressure.  There is no time to take a break at lunch, just enough time to refill while eating at our desk.  Our work colleagues seek to blame us for their mistakes or pile their work onto us.  The help we receive is often inadequate or poorly done, requiring us to do it all over again ourselves.  Endless administrative paperwork fills our day.  The long report we have been working hard on lies unread on our bosses desk and nothing of substance ever comes of it.  The people who seem to least deserve it get promoted before us.  We leave work late, battle the traffic again, only to come home to a house filled with things to do, like make dinner, do the dishes, give baths to the little ones, brush the teeth of squirming kids, read the same stories for the umpteenth time, plead the kids to go to bed, and help older kids with their homework which we ourselves sometimes don’t understand.  Then, needing some time to unwind, we crash in front of the TV for a short period of time before going to bed later than we would want to.  Having a sex life seems like a distant memory from college.  Only to have to wake up to go the bathroom in the middle of the night with increasing frequency as we get older, leaving us feeling like we never get a full night’s sleep.  And all of this is just daily life.

Add on top of that financial stress of bills to pay, college tuition to save up for, family members becoming sick, ridiculous conflicts over insignificant slights with our closest relatives, family members who never appreciate what we do and who always complain about everything, weather that is too cold in the winter too wet in the spring and fall and too hot in the summer, never having enough money to do what we want, getting sick ourselves, experiencing death of loved ones, watching teenage dramas playing out with flowing tears, being blamed by our kids for all of the different ways we are a failure as a parent.  All of this only to be greeted with our friend’s Facebook feeds showing smiling faces, delightful vacations, award-winning kids, homemade bread making parties and nature hikes while we remain frazzled, exhausted and feel like a failure.  Speaking of Facebook, nobody has conversations anymore, friends are little more than pixels on our mobile phones.  While “friends” with the world, people have never felt so alone.  Oh, and don’t forget the invasion of ants and cockroaches in your kitchen which you try not to kill because you are a good Buddhist followed by the judgmental attitudes of those wondering why you can’t keep your FP or TTP commitments and make it to all the festivals.

Life is filled with minor annoyances, each one not a big deal, but added together and it becomes unbearable.  Chinese water torture is one drop at a time incessantly, so too is modern life.  Even being beaten with a wet noodle will eventually draw blood if struck enough times.  And we haven’t even confronted big suffering, like the death of a child or the sickness that will finally kill us.  If we can’t learn how to accept the small things, they will add up into a crushing burden.

When we do not accept the minor annoyances, each one takes a toll, and eventually we run out of strength to deal with anymore.  We then get into a very fragile state, where even the slightest problem becomes a huge deal for us because we simply can’t take anymore.  This is the experience of millions, but we always feel as if we are the only one enduring such endless problems.  Welcome to modern life.

Geshe-la said the purpose of our tradition is to attain the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life.  We have modern lives such as these, our job is to bring the Kadam Dharma into them so that they become the training ground in which we attain enlightenment.  There is no task more important than learning to accept our small sufferings.

To accept them does not mean to endure them, rather it means to use them in some meaningful, spiritual way.  We can accept them as purification, use them as a reminder of the nature of samsara, view them as an opportunity to train our mind in patience and love, use them as a reminder of the far greater suffering of others and thereby generate compassion, we can recall that in and of themselves, they are nothing, just mere karmic appearances of mind; we can transform them into our pure land with our tantric practice (the charnel grounds resemble quite closely modern life…), we can view ourselves as an emanation sent into this world to help others.  Or we can just take a step back into our clear light mind and watch it all pass like clouds in the sky.  The point is simple:  we either learn how to use these minor annoyances or they will eventually crush us under their constantly accumulating weight.  By learning to accept the small stuff, we can eventually gain the ability to transform worse and worse sufferings until eventually everything for us is an equal dance of bliss and emptiness.

After his introduction to patient acceptance, Shantideva goes on to describe the three types of patience in which we should train.  There are three kinds of situation in which we need to learn to be patient.  One is when we are experiencing suffering, at which time we should practice the patience of voluntarily accepting suffering.  Another is when we are practicing Dharma, at which time we should practice the patience of definitely thinking about Dharma.  Third is when we are harmed or criticized by others, we should practice the patience of not retaliating.

The first type of patience we need to train in is the patience of voluntarily accepting suffering:

(6.12) In samsara, the causes of happiness rarely occur,
Whereas the causes of suffering are innumerable.
Without suffering, there would be no renunciation;
Therefore, mind, you should remain firm.

This is how it is. We have to accept this.  “In samsara, the causes of happiness rarely occur, whereas the causes of suffering are innumerable.”  We cannot change that. That’s what we have to accept within samsara.  As explained in the previous post, the teachings on the nature of samsara are essentially a giant exercise in expectations management.  We get angry because we expect things to go differently.  When we let go of that expectations, we cease getting angry.

Recognizing samsara is the nature of suffering is the basis for developing renunciation.  It can only dawn within the clear and open mind of patient acceptance.  If we cannot accept the nature of samsara, we cannot develop renunciation.  If we cannot accept suffering whilst in samsara, we cannot accept that samsara is in the very nature of suffering.  For as long as we’re in samsara we will continue to experience suffering; if we cannot accept any of this, then we will not be able to develop renunciation.  This is a very important point.

Without renunciation we will never find the freedom we seek.  Without renunciation our suffering will never come to an end.  The end of our suffering depends upon renunciation, which in turn depends upon acceptance of how things are within samsara. We still don’t accept, which is why still we have no renunciation. We haven’t developed authentic renunciation because there is a lack of acceptance in our mind.

In Transform Your Life, Geshe-la says, “patience allows us to see clearly the mental habit patterns that keep us locked in samsara, and thereby enables us to begin to undo them.”  Change leading to the attainment of a pure mind and pure body takes place in dependence upon possessing a mind of acceptance.  Or we can say such change can’t take place if there is no mind of acceptance. Then we remain a samsaric being.  We remain a samsaric being for as long as there is no such acceptance in our mind. Change, improvement, depends very much on possessing patient acceptance.

There is still much rejection in our mind we need to look at. We ought to look at that rejection.  We still reject that negative actions and self-cherishing are the causes of all our suffering. We still reject that samsara is the nature of suffering, that happiness can’t be found in samsara. We still reject that there are no external enemies or causes of our problems. We still reject our experiences of suffering.  As long as there is a non-acceptance of the way things are, it will be impossible for change to take place and for us to get better.

(6.13) If some ascetics and the people of Karnapa
Can endure the pain of burns and cuts for no great purpose,
Why can I not endure hardships
For the sake of liberating everyone from their suffering?

We cannot tolerate unpleasant, painful things. Why not?  If we look there’s no good reason.  When we do experience pain, what happens? We identify with that pain.  We think ‘I am in pain.’   Then we naturally exaggerate those painful feelings, don’t we? We are in real pain. I am in pain. I am really suffering.  We are like children, always exaggerating whatever pain we experience.

If we are to make progress along the path, we must be willing to endure hardships, knowing that by doing so we are drawing closer to being able to liberate everyone else from their suffering.   When we have a good reason for experiencing pain, we can accept it.  We gladly accept a needle poked into our skin if we know it contains life-saving medicine.  When we know that accepting and working through our suffering is bringing us to enlightenment, which will free all living beings, we will gladly accept it because it has so much meaning.  A former student of mine has severe anxiety and psychotic tendencies.  But his faith in Dorje Shugden is even greater.  He views his situation as Dorje Shugden preparing him to be a Buddha in extremely degenerate times.  He is being given extremely degenerate minds now so he can learn how to practice and transform such a situation, thereby giving him the realizations beings of degenerate times will need.  This is perfect.  As Shantideva says, “why can I not endure hardships for the sake of liberating living beings from suffering?”  It’s a good question, why not?

(6.11) People do not want suffering, criticism,
Harsh words, or anything unpleasant
For themselves or for their friends;
But for their enemies it is the opposite!

Bad things are happening to everybody all of the time.  When bad things happen to those we love, we become angry; when bad things happen to those we dislike, we become happy.  Both reactions are completely wrong.  The first reaction is wrong because getting angry just makes things worse and does nothing to solve the problem.  The second reaction is wrong because rejoicing in the suffering of others creates the karmic causes for ourselves to experience the same suffering in the future.  The correct reaction in both cases is to develop compassion.  We cannot develop compassion for our enemies unless we love them, so our first task is to learn to love everyone.

Sometimes people hear the teachings on how samsara is the nature of suffering and they develop all sorts of wrong understandings.  Some people become very depressed, viewing everything as somehow inherently the nature of suffering and there is nothing we can do about it other than be miserable.  Others wrongly think that it is somehow wrong to be happy since everything is the nature of suffering, instead we should be miserable and grim.  They transform the Joyful Path into the Eeyore Path.  These views are also completely wrong.  Instead, we need to lower our expectations to zero.

If we check, our suffering largely arises out of the gap between our expectations and reality.  We expect things to go well, and when they don’t we become unhappy.  If instead we expect nothing from anybody or anything, and we expect things to always go wrong (but be at peace with that possibility), then if things go wrong we are not unhappy because we didn’t expect anything different.  If things go better than terrible, we are then pleasantly surprised that things turned out better than we expected.  Seen in this way, the teachings on renunciation are, in fact, a giant exercise in expectations management.

The key here is to be able to be at peace with the possibility that everything will always go wrong.  What enables us to be at peace with this possibility?  We know how to “accept” things going wrong as perfect for our spiritual progress.  In other words, we know how to use our suffering.  Since what we want is to make spiritual progress and our suffering helps us to do that, it is no longer a problem for us.  We can “accept it.”  In Transform Your Life, Geshe-la describes patient acceptance as “welcoming wholeheartedly whatever arises, having given up the idea that things should be other than what they are.”  In other words we must try to accept fully the situation as it is. Try to accept fully the person as they are. The situation is just how it is. This person is how they are, that’s how they are.

Again we’ll find resistance, thinking, “it’s just not right that the situation is like this, the person is like this.” What’s not right?  What’s actually wrong?  We’re in samsara.  It’s perfectly right and normal for samsara. That’s what things are like in samsara, that’s how people behave.  What do we expect within samsara? Everything to be right?  What’s actually wrong is our mind, because if we put our mind right, everything else will be too. Nothing goes wrong in Geshe-la’s mind, because Geshe-la’s out of samsara.

If we check closely, if we feel that there’s something wrong, it’s an indication that there’s something wrong in our mind.  What are we actually becoming unhappy about?  The problem actually, as Geshe-la has told us so many times, the problem is in our mind.  If we feel that there’s not a problem, with a person, a situation, with the way they’re behaving, then we won’t become unhappy.  We become angry when we’re not accepting the situation for what it is, we’re not accepting the person for what they’re doing.

What would the correct approach be to someone whom we know to be engaging in harmful action, for example?  What we tend to feel is if we are fully accepting of the situation as it is, the person and how they’re behaving, we’ve gone to an extreme.  Are we simply to let be, or not? To let be. This is how it is. This is what they’re like. This is what they’re saying, this is what they’re doing.  Complete acceptance.  Of course we won’t become unhappy; we’ll have a very, very peaceful mind.  Have we gone to an extreme?  What happens when something appears to be wrong, what do we do? We go straight in, make changes straightaway. What is the middle way?  The answer is found in the previous verse:  if we can do something about it, do it; if we can’t, accept it.