"Do I have unrealistic expectations?
Week 5 - "Do I have unrealistic expectations?"
Class started March 6, and I've been able to go to all of them thus far. So good.
I want to be a good little student and retain this by writing an outline/notes of the chapter he recommended to read for class this Monday.
The book is How to Solve Our Human Problems: The Four Noble Truths by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
The chapter Learning to Accept Suffering is from Part Two: Patience in the book.
Below is all quoted from the book. The "i.e.'s" etc are to reference since there is a bit of new verbiage learning these teachings.
Learning to Accept Suffering
Three kinds of situation where we need to learn patience:
1. When we are experiencing suffering, hardship or disappointment
2. When we are practicing Dharma (I.e. the teachings)
3. When we are harmed or criticized by others
Correspondingly there's three kinds of patience:
1. The patience of voluntarily accepting suffering
2. The patience of definitely thinking about Dharma
3. The patience of not retaliating
..once we understand them clearly and put them into practice sincerely and skillfully, they will liberate our mind from one of its most obsessive delusions and bring great peace and joy.
To practice the first.. we should remember that, wherever we find ourself within samsara (I see it as being characterized by suffering and dissatisfaction), only a few circumstances bring happiness whereas the causes of misery abound. This is the nature of samsara - its sufferings are infinite while joys are limited.
We should learn to accept what is unavoidable rather than fight against it.
..we can certainly avoid the unhappiness and anger these [difficult and unpleasant] circumstances provoke in us. It is these habitual reactions to hardship, rather than the hardship itself, that disturb our day-to-day peace of mind.
When we learn to accept difficult circumstances patiently, the real problem disappears.
..if we refuse to deal realistically with the discomfort [of difficult circumstances in this example illness], cursing our illness and letting ourselves become depressed, then not only will we have to endure the additional suffering of mental torment, but very probably our physical pain will increase as well.
..we can see that responding to hardship with non-acceptance and anger only makes things worse.
There is a certain mental stability to be had merely from recognizing that every experience of pain or discomfort is the fault of our being caught up in samsara.
Our real problem is being trapped in samsara. For as long as we are in conflict with life's difficulties, thinking that things should be different from the way they are and blaming circumstances or other people for our unhappiness, we will never have the clarity or spaciousness of mind to see what it is that is really binding us. Patience allows us to see clearly the habits patterns that keep us locked in samsara.. enabling us to begin to undo them.
When hurtful things happen to us our instinctive reaction is to escape the painful feelings in our mind by becoming defensive, blaming the other person, retaliating or simply hardening our heart. They are only feelings, a few moments of bad weather in our mind, with no power to cause us any lasting harm. There is no need to take them so seriously.
Just as there is room in the sky for a thunderstorm, so there is room in the vast space of our mind for a few painful feelings; and just as a storm has no power to destroy the sky, so unpleasant feelings have no power to destroy our mind.
.. we will discover that painful feelings do not come to us from outside but arise from within our own mind.
.. the most outer circumstances can do is trigger the potentials for painful feelings that already exist within our own mind.
Moreover, painful feelings can only arise and remain in our mind because of our present self-grasping. If we examine our mind carefully while we are experiencing painful emotions, we will discover that these feelings are invariably mixed with self-grasping. In particular, it is our grasping at an inherently existent I and mine that makes us suffer. The feelings of hurt are inseparably bound up with grasping at I and mine; we strongly feel "I am hurt" or "My feelings are hurt." The intensity of our suffering is in direct proportion to the intensity of our self-grasping.
When we identify with our feelings, we make them bigger and more solid than they are, and it is becomes far more difficult to let the unpleasant feelings go. On the other hand, when we learn to view our feelings in a more detached way, seeing them simply as waves in the ocean of our mind, they become less frightening and much easier to deal with constructively.
Why are we so easily discouraged by the small difficulties of human life?
By familiarizing our mind with the patience of voluntarily accepting suffering, our problems and troubles will eventually disappear. Everything depends upon familiarity.
..we will be able to live without fear, knowing there is nothing that could happen to us that we cannot accept and transform into the spiritual path.
The more familiar we come with the patience acceptance of suffering, the more the strength of our patience will increase. Therefore, whenever we experience suffering we should recall the teachings on patience and thereby prevent this suffering from harming us.
..delusions are deeply ingrained mental habits, working to overcome them is not always easy.
..our internal enemies - the delusions- will never die a natural death. If we do not exert effort in ridding our mind of these persistent foes, they will keep us locked in the prison of samsara, as they have done since beginningless time.
Through reflecting on our own suffering, we can develop many useful insights and positive qualities. Recognizing our vulnerability dispels our arrogance and deluded pride.
..we can use our own pain to understand the pain of all living beings. Having learned to accept our own suffering patiently, if we then think of the suffering of all the other living beings trapped in samsara, compassion will arise naturally.
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