ThePracticalBuddhist.com
  • Home
  • TEACHINGS: Blog
  • Coming Home Video Series
  • The Heart Sutra | A New Translation & Commentary
  • LIFE COACHING
  • BOOKS:
  • How to Find Inner Peace
  • The Self in No Self
  • Making Your Way in Life as a Buddhist
  • Scratching the Itch: Getting to the Root of Our Suffering
  • Raising a Happy Child
  • Dear Buddha | An Advice Column
  • A Buddhist Anthem - There's Nothing Like Today
  • Who Am I?
  • Bio
  • Contact

What Am I To Do?

1/17/2017

0 Comments

 
Dear Hanh Niem,

You have related in several posts that if you are doing something that causes you suffering, then that action is a product of your ego-mind not your heart and you should reject that guidance because it is not right for you.  However, there are times when I try to do something which my heart tells me is important for me to do to make further progress on the path or get past an important problem in my life, but proceeding with that causes endless suffering and much doubt and confusion.  It feels like I’m going against my nature and best interests despite my heart’s guidance.

Should I therefore question this guidance?  Should I reject it?

What Am I To Do


Dear What Am I To Do,

You ask a very good question.   So good, that I had to sit with it to see the answer.  I knew instinctively that the answer to your question is no, but I didn’t know why.  It was confusing.

The Buddha said, “If it causes you suffering, then it is not you, it is not yours, it is not yourself.”  And so one should let it go.  Reject it.

That teaching is absolute.  There is no if’s, and’s, or but’s.  So how can I advise you to not reject something that’s causing you to suffer?

Then I remembered the teaching I received on skillful v unskillful desires (see my blog post “How to Desire Yet Not Crave”).  Part of that lesson was that even if you have a desire that is skillful … in keeping with the five Precepts … if it is approached from a lack of equanimity, then it becomes an unskillful desire, a craving, and you will suffer.  You may still be doing good, but you will suffer.  An example is that you want to help people, but you want to do that because you want to be recognized as good.  The act is skillful, but the driving force is not.

In your situation, if you are trying to do something which you are sure is guidance coming from your heart, but you are suffering as you try to implement that guidance, then that tells you that you are not approaching the subject matter of the guidance with equanimity.  For example, let’s say your heart is telling you to end a relationship because it’s not right for you.  But you are confused and suffering because part of you really doesn’t want to end the relationship, so you don’t move forward and when you try to you are beset with pain.

The problem is that you are not approaching this relationship with equanimity.  You are not able to say, “If it happens, great.  If it doesn’t happen, that’s ok too.”  Instead you are approaching it as something essential to your happiness, a need, a craving.  And so trying to follow your heart’s guidance is causing you pain.

What you need to do before trying to implement your heart’s guidance is to put yourself in a place of equanimity regarding the relationship.  There are many tools I have suggested in various posts to help you reach that place, where you view something in an unattached manner, with dispassion.  


In this case, I think the most effective would be to open your heart to embrace all aspects of your being and experience, including the potential ending of this relationship.  When you do that, and therefore nothing offends, you will know that you have everything you need inside yourself to be at peace and happy.  And when you know that, you will have faith that regardless what life throws your way, all will be well because you will always return home to your unborn Buddha mind and thus be at peace and happy.
0 Comments

    Dear Buddha |  An Advice Column by Hanh Niêm

    Archives

    November 2020
    January 2017
    August 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    August 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013

    Categories

    All
    Acceptance Isn't Working
    Bored In The Country
    Compassion For Some Not All
    Confused
    Consumed By Fear
    Controlled By Cravings
    Feel Like A Failure
    Frustrated!
    Have No Peace
    Heart Or Ego?
    How To Know What To Do
    How To Stop Striving
    Longing For Good Sex
    Meditation Isn't Working
    Mind Won't Stop
    Obsessed About The Future
    Overwhelmed By Desire
    Questioning The Meaning Of It All
    Restless And Unmoving
    Show Me The Way
    Thinking Of Divorce
    Tired Of Anger
    Torn Between God And Buddhism
    Trapped In Disappointment
    Trying To Be Present
    Trying To Live The Purpose Driven Life
    Unhappy With The Human Condition
    Wanting To Fight The Good Fight
    Want To Smile
    What Am I To Do?
    Why Am I Here?
    Why Am I Not Free?
    Why Do We Suffer?

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.