Twenty rules of life (2)

Meditation practice is not just about sitting on a cushion and concentrating, but practicing to stay positive and peaceful throughout the whole day. I like to think of it as happiness training.

Yesterday a meditator of one year, who has just finished working 60 days straight, 16 hours a day, on hurricane rebuilding, told me, “I only lost my temper once during that whole time. I used to lose my temper every single day. My coworkers all noticed and want to know what’s happened to me. I realized that although I haven’t had time for a daily meditation session these past couple of months, the advice on how to stay peaceful and patient is baked into my mind. And I’m really happy about that.”

If he can do it, so can you and me.

So, whatever we are up to today, here are 10 more ideas for staying positive and peaceful. Carrying straight on from this article.

11. Keep your options open

Keeping our mind open is keeping our options open, I think. There are many ways to go about this, but none better than remembering emptiness – everything depends upon thought (including thought!) and so nothing at all is fixed. We can learn to think or label whatever we want and create whatever dream-like reality we want.

For whom emptiness is possible, everything is possible.

as the great sage Nagarjuna said.

12. Don’t be a slave to your surroundings

“Possessions and a luxurious home may seem important, but there are more important things to treasure in life.” Especially the happiness that comes from the inner peace of wisdom and love, which is good deal more certain than the happiness that comes from having some cool palm trees in our yard.

The real source of happiness is inner peace. If our mind is peaceful, we will be happy all the time, regardless of external conditions, but if it is disturbed or troubled in any way, we will never be happy, no matter how good our external conditions may be. ~ How to Transform Your Life

Talking of which, I was strolling in the Land of the One Percenters (aka the Hollywood Hills) a few days ago, wondering whether luxury made life easier for everyone up here. Of course it does in some ways, I was thinking, and I was glad for them because lord knows there are more than enough people suffering from abysmal poverty and homelessness in our world. I was also making a little prayer that some of their good karma might ripen on them in the form of spiritual realizations (like universal love and generosity to homeless charities, to name but two).

But then, even so, I came across this real estate sign, “Luxury living made easy.” Which seems to suggest that luxury living can be hard work. Someone in LA was also telling me that they have a beautiful garden, jacuzzi, and view, and yet still they sit there wondering why they cannot enjoy it more.

This rule reminds me of this line I’ve been thinking about a lot recently from the benefits of meditation section in How to Transform Your Life, how we are, “too closely involved in the external situation”. This can lead to attachment to outcome and the corresponding anxiety when things aren’t working out exactly as we desire – we are up and down like a blimmin’ yo yo. We don’t want to be enslaved by external appearances, by fleeting surroundings, like a yo yo or a puppet on a string. If we want to be satisfied and fulfilled, we need to master our minds instead.

13. Learn not to be gluttonous

“We as a society obsess over food and the pleasures of fine dining, or even just a good takeaway.” But as Buddha pointed out, we are full of contradictory desires, which is one reason why our attachment doesn’t work out for us — we want rich food and zero body fat, for example, or loads of alcohol and no grogginess.

For me, recalling that I’ve given my body away in the service of the Buddhas and all living beings helps me look after it better in terms of enjoying exercise and not being quite so attached to eating unhealthy stuff. Eat to live, not live to eat, as the old saying goes. (Work in progress. I just had a packet of chips.)

14. Abandon possessions in favor of minimalism

Or “don’t hold onto things you don’t need any more.” The practice of giving can be very liberating because it helps us let go of grasping so tightly at Me, My, and Mine.

There is probably no optimum number of possessions; everyone is different. So I think it is not the number of possessions we have but the way we are viewing them that is conducive to happiness and fulfillment. However, our possessions would seem to derive the most meaning from being given away, or being used directly or indirectly for others’ sake. Click on these links for more practical stuff on overcoming miserliness and becoming more open-hearted and generous.

15. Do not believe something just because you’re told to

“Don’t just follow the crowd and listen to others’ opinions.” Good advice for us in our modern echo chambers. Buddhism is all about this as a matter of fact — we are encouraged to check everything out carefully in our own experience to see if it is true for us before taking it on board. Buddha said we should not blindly believe him just because he is Buddha, but to test the teachings for their authenticity as if we were testing gold before committing to buying it.

Faith and experience go hand in hand. If we try something and it works, for example cherishing others, we can then have the confidence and faith to try something else, for example giving up selfishness.

16. Respect the gods, but do not rely solely on their guidance

I take this to mean that we need to rely on all Three Jewels — Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Our ultimate protection is Dharma Jewel, the Dharma wisdom we grow in our own minds as a result of listening to Buddhist teachings, contemplating, and meditating. We do most certainly need the inspiration and guidance of enlightened beings and fellow practitioners to steer us out of the ocean of samsara, and, as Geshe Kelsang explains in Great Treasury of Merit, we also need the inner teacher of our own wisdom.

17. Have no fear of dying

The only way we can pull this one off is if we come happily to terms with our death now rather than waiting till our deathbed when it’ll be a bit too late. An awareness of impermanence and death, “I may die today,” enables us to live our precious life to the full, go with the flow, and prepare for a peaceful death and good future lives.

18. Do not use weaponry unless it is necessary

Ermm, what to say … I do agree with the author that we shouldn’t attack people, and I would include in that butchering defenseless animals. And Buddha Heruka has a lot of weapons that he uses all the time to overcome the enemy of the delusions, but never living beings.

19. Do not put pressure on retiring with riches

“Again, it was suggested we should live in the moment and not chase happiness in the form of possessions.” I guess the salient word is “pressure” — we can still make plans for retirement without attachment. If we see the importance of preparing for the future, we can also encourage ourselves to plan for our countless future lives, seeing as these are far more definite than retirement in this life (especially these days! LOL), and far more lengthy.

20. Always protect your honor

“Live life as honorably as you know how to” with, for example, the aid of sense of shame and consideration for others, being a reliable, non-hypocritical, kind, and trustworthy person.

Conclusion

Although these are 20 quite random bits of Dharma advice, which pretty much boil down to practicing wisdom and compassion, I enjoyed thinking about them; so thank you for reading. As mentioned at the end of the last article, if you like lists of practical advice for inspiring daily living, you can find some time-tested Kadampa “rules” in the books Universal Compassion (the precepts and commitments of training the mind) and The Bodhisattva Vow.

Comments welcome below.