Dear Buddha | A practical Buddhist Advice Column by Hanh Niêm - ThePracticalBuddhist.com

Overwhelmed by Desire

12/26/2013

Dear Hanh Niem,

I often have INTENSE crushes on guys. Sometimes I pick up on a "christ/buddha" type of energy that is terribly attractive. I decided to work on my own energy, will myself to emanate love to the point that others can notice it. Cool, right? Well, I have a new crush. I don't feel the buddha/christ energy in him, but I can tell that he senses it in me. He's terribly attractive (like, SICKENINGLY gorgeous) but I don't want to like someone based on him just being hot. He's not a bad guy, I'm just concerned that for me it's just a physical attraction. Two questions I need advice on: 1. How do I stop desire? It's really difficult to have control of my mind when it's in a CONSTANT state of desire. 2. How do I attract someone with the buddha/christ energy that I'm trying to attain myself?

Overwhelmed by Desire

Dear Overwhelmed by Desire,

Before I answer your questions, remember that the Buddha taught that one of the most powerful sources of our suffering is the craving caused by our lust, our sensual desire. Freeing yourself from that craving is a real challenge.

Regarding your first question, how do I stop desire, basically, you need to get to a point where you accept yourself and the world around you as it is. Not an easy thing, but there is a clear path. As for freeing yourself from the constant pressure of your thinking mind, it's a question of becoming aware and understanding that everything in your mind is empty of anything real, it's all learned experience … a reaction to reality not a picture of reality. I would advise reading my blog posts that deal with desire and the constant pressure from our thinking mind as well as one of my books, which go into much greater detail about the problem and the process.

As to how you attract someone, all you should do is be yourself. All this talk about buddha/christ energy is misplaced and a long, long way off. If you’re serious about wanting to end the pull of desire and your thinking mind, you have to start with the basics and build a very disciplined practice. The Buddhist path is not something that one traverses overnight.

Peace is something which can come earlier in one’s practice, and that’s certainly something that will emanate. But it will be a long time till you emanate the “buddha/christ energy” and I doubt that any of the men you've been attracted to emanate that energy either. Until you or others reach a point in your practice close to the first stage of enlightenment, that energy will be buried beneath your ego’s learned experience and thus cannot emanate.

Feel Like a Failure

12/16/2013

Dear Hanh Niem,

I feel like a failure. For years I have been meditating, going to temple, reading books. and more recently reading your blog and advice column. In many respects my life has changed a lot during this time. I have found much peace and happiness. However, it frequently happens that I am not aware when my ego-mind arises and so I don’t stop and return to my breathing, etc., and am left with yet another teachable moment when I meditate the next day.

I know you’ve written why this keeps on happening, and yet I can’t help feeling a failure. And I have hurt people I love and care deeply about because of my ego-mind’s interference with listening deeply and speaking with loving kindness.

Feel Like a Failure

Dear Feel Like a Failure,

If you are practicing daily and following the suggestions I have made, there is little more you can do to stop the constant activity of your ego-mind. This is part of our suffering. And as with all aspects of our suffering, you need to have unconditional love and compassion for yourself. You are not a failure in any sense of the word ... forgetting for the moment that that is a cultural label which should be excised from your mental vocabulary.

Perfection is not something that is realistic or even healthy to strive for. All you can do is the best that you can. Take comfort in the fact that a teacher as learned and esteemed as Pima Chodron has moments when her ego-mind arises and takes control, and certainly lesser teachers such as myself experience this frequently.

What I would suggest, however, in the type of situation you describe ... where you feel you have harmed someone ... is consider making amends to that person, apologize for not listening deeply and not speaking with loving kindness. Unless you sense that making such an apology would make the other person feel very awkward or in some other way would be discomfiting, making amends is a good spiritual practice.

Why Does This Never End?

11/24/2013

Dear Hanh Niem,

I am so frustrated. Like others who have written you, I have been practicing, meditating daily, for years and in general feel good about my practice and the peace and happiness I have discovered. But like the others, and as you describe yourself, as soon as I’m not aware, my ego-mind grabs hold of me and leads me to a place of frustration, anger, or anxiety. It is a constant challenge.

I read your post to “Frustrated.” I understand the advice you gave. But my question is, why does this never end. When you read about ancient Buddhist masters or the Buddha himself, there are always many examples of people who experience almost instantaneous enlightenment, at least at the level of stream-enterers. Why don’t any of us seem to have that experience and instead struggle endlessly.

Why Does This Never End

Dear Why Does This Never End,

You raise a very interesting and relevant question. Obviously something has changed in the intervening centuries … you are correct that we, at least in the West, do not hear about and we certainly haven’t personally experienced this type of instantaneous enlightenment. Some might say that what has changed is the absence of truly great, holy teachers with whom one has the opportunity to have direct contact. While that is certainly true for most of us, I don’t think that’s the critical part of the answer.

Rather, the main barrier modern man experiences in walking the path, following the teachings of the Buddha, is the increased strength of our ego brought about by the changes in our culture, which has also manipulated us into having uncontrollable cravings.

The ego of course has always been a problem … witness the Buddha’s struggles to find enlightenment and the ongoing temptations presented by Mara, his spiritual tempter. But in modern Western culture, man has evolved from a being subject to certain basic fears and desires that are part of the human condition into a being subject to an incredibly complex and strong panoply of fears and desires formed by the prevailing culture and our learned experience.

We have also gone from a communal to an individualistic culture where everything comes back to “me.” We have morphed into something almost totally out of control … which is to say with our ego-mind in full control … and without any awareness of that fact, out of touch with our true Buddha nature.

And so we find that even the gate to following the Noble Eightfold Path is closed to us because in order to practice the Noble Eightfold Path one must first be free of our ego’s influence. One cannot practice Right View or Right anything … becoming a stream-enterer … if ones ego, ones learned experience, is still a controlling force in one’s mind, because the ego will intervene by generating thoughts/obstructions which commandeer our mind and obscure our true Buddha nature, from which flows the various Right activities.

For modern man, at least modern Western man, the essential task thus becomes one of freeing oneself from one’s ego, to the extent possible. To approach that task, we must first have clarity about the cause of our craving and the role of our ego. I do not mean here an individualistic psychoanalytical view of our cravings and our ego, but rather a more macro generic view of these forces

Since our minds are not open to the kind of spiritual conversion seen in the past, we must approach the process first from an intellectual perspective. Once we have understood the truth of the teachings on an intellectual level, we will begin to see evidence of this truth in our lives and our being and heart will be open to taking the truths the further step and embracing them fully, internalizing them, bringing us in contact with our true Buddha nature. That is the basis of my teachings.

But as I have frequently written, our egos are a part of us and will remain lying in wait, even if we do surrender our ego to our true Buddha nature and turn our will and our life over to the care of our true Buddha nature. It is that entrenched.

This is not to say that one should throw up ones hands in defeat. One can achieve huge changes in ones life by walking the path, even with the inevitable unsettling episodes caused by the ego arising when we are not aware. Indeed, it is important to have compassion both for oneself that we are not able to completely free ourselves from the influence of our ego and also for our ego because we know what has caused it to have the perspective that it does.

And so I fear that the challenges we face in walking the path are inescapable. We are listening to the sound of a different drummer from that of our fellow man who is mesmerized by the drumbeat of the larger culture. That is why taking refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha is so essential. We need support in what we are trying to do. We need to know that we are not alone.

Wanting to FIght the Good Fight

11/18/2013

Dear Hanh Niem,

In Buddhist teaching, we are told that we are all one, that there is no “other,” and that when the mind does not discriminate, all things are as one. And when we are in this state, we do not take sides. But how can a Buddhist not take sides? There are wrongs in the world that need to be righted. People are suffering from want of basic needs. I am troubled by this teaching. Have I missed something?

Wanting to Fight the Good Fight

Dear Wanting to FIght the Good Fight,

Indeed, engaged Buddhism ... a phrase coined by Thich Nhat Hanh ... encourages Buddhists to take the insights gained through their practice and work to relieve the suffering of others whether from social, political, environmental, or other causes. The Dalai Lama has also stated that Buddhists should do much more to address social and political problems.

However, there are a few very important caveats to engaging in such work as a Buddhist.

In your desire to help relieve others of their suffering, it is important that your desire arises from a base of equanimity, rather than from a need to, for example, prove yourself or create a good image of yourself. If your desire to help does not arise from equanimity, then it is an unskillful desire and will lead to attachment and frustration and is not consistent with the Five Precepts even though you may be doing good work. (See my blog post, “How to Desire Yet Not Crave.”)
Be careful that the wrong you wish to right is something that you discern with your true Buddha mind, free of the intervention of thought, of labels. If your desire is tainted by such obstructions, then your desire is again not skillful and easily will turn into anger at those who are causing or not helping to solve the problem.
Do not engage in a fight ... this is what is meant by not taking sides. A Buddhist works in a positive manner to relieve suffering. We helps others. We do not view our work as a battle against someone, some organization, some government. Such parties may view our efforts as antagonistic, but our focus is solely on helping others.

How does that translate to something such
as getting involved in an election campaign?
While for many working on a campaign, it is a
fight, and it’s often about defeating the
opponent, from your Buddhist perspective it
must always be about making positive
contributions to elect your candidate. This is a
very easy line to cross, so you must be
mindful at all times if you engage in this type
of action. Also, be careful not to get so wound
up in the campaign (a very easy thing to do)
that you lose your “neutral” perspective ... by
"neutral" I mean that your work arises from a
base of equanimity that is free of labels.

Obsessed about the Future

10/30/2013

Dear Hanh Niem,

Despite my trying to live in the present, I keep on obsessing about the future, especially when I have to plan for something large or small. It’s a real pain.

Obsessed About the Future

Dear Obsessed About the Future,

Planning for the future without obsessing is a real challenge for all of us. Not surprising given that in our society and our learned experience, changing our lives, making us something we aren’t, getting something we don’t have now ... all those things are of the utmost importance supposedly to our happiness and our standing with our peers. We are very insecure.

As with most aspects of walking the path, it comes down to awareness and making a choice. Awareness is observing ourselves and understanding what is happening to us. It is reflection that requires focus and being present in the moment, free of the intervention of thought. That last part ... being free of the intervention of thought ... is of critical importance. If you think you are present but are thinking, then you aren’t present at all but off somewhere, wherever your thinking mind is taking you. In various posts I have described exercises to help you be in that state.

Once you are in that state, and you become aware that your thinking mind wants to obsess about the future, the choice is yours. You can either go where your thinking-mind leads you, or you can say, “No, I’m not going there; I have compassion for you and I appreciate where you’re coming from, but following you will result in nothing but fear and anxiety, frustration, and suffering. Instead, I am going to listen to my true Buddha nature and be present, knowing that if I live each moment well, the future will take care of itself, all will be well regardless what life throws in my direction.”

Recently I was once again dealing with this very issue. Yes, it never ends as our ego and thinking mind are always there, very active, and very strong and wily. Anyway, I all of a sudden remembered a popular song from my childhood, “Che Sera.” The opening words were, “When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother what will I be, will I be pretty, will I be rich, here’s what she said to me. Che sera sera, whatever will be, will be. The future’s not our’s to see. Che sera sera.”

What a wonderful spiritually advanced song to come out of our modern culture. How strange. Were things really that different 60 years ago?

As the days have passed, I have thought of that song and sung it to myself often during the day. It brings a smile to my face and somehow, probably because it’s a part of the culture I grew up in, it makes it easier for me to choose not to obsess about the future when my thinking mind wants to take me in that direction.

Acceptance Isn't Working

10/20/2013

Dear Hanh Niem,

I am depressed. My life is not going very well. I’m in both physical and psychological pain. I meditate regularly and I think I’ve accepted my situation and practice the teaching of “it’s just the way it is” but none of that has made a difference. I am depressed, frustrated, and often angry.

Acceptance Isn't Working

Dear Acceptance Isn't Working,

The problem here are the labels your thinking mind places on things. When we practice acceptance or “it’s just the way it is,” it’s critical to understand that regardless how these words sound in English, this is not about resignation ... accepting one’s lot in life as being bad, pain, etc. It’s about accepting or viewing everything about yourself and the world around you without any judgment value labels. If you are still applying labels, as it appears from your letter you are, then you are not really practicing acceptance or “it’s just the way it is.”

How do you not apply the labels that are part of your habit energy, that have become instinctual? It comes back to being present free of the intervention of thought. And for that one needs to be aware so that you do not follow your thinking mind when it wants to apply these labels. View it with compassion, but say that you’re not going there, that you are seeking guidance from your true Buddha nature, knowing that these labels are all learned experience and have no intrinsic value.

Having said this, I must admit from personal experience that applying this practice to matters that hit very close to home when the going gets rough is very difficult ... both being aware and not following your habit energy. And these of course are the situations that cause us the most agony.

Part of my answer to you lies in the answer I gave to “Consumed by Fear.” But you need to go further to the issue of labels, because it is the application of these labels that causes our reactions. For example, if you call something “pain,” there is no way that you will be able to keep yourself from running from it or trying to stop it because it’s a biological imperative. The trick is to stop naming it “pain.” Yes, this is thought, but it’s so instinctual that I find it productive to deal with it as a separate issue.

When I was dealing with this same issue, I applied the lessons I had learned in dealing with the weather. Before you react with “huh?”, please read on.

Think of almost any element of weather … heat, cold, rain, snow. These are very objective, measurable facts. Yet one person will thrive in a particular weather condition while another can’t stand it. Our reactions to the weather are entirely subjective and change from person to person. What causes these differing reactions? It’s our learned experience. Whether it’s the weather we grew up with, whether it’s how our parents or peers reacted to the weather ... a variety of learned inputs form our individual response to the weather.

And this subjective view in turn causes many of us suffering. How often have we been in a weather situation that we didn’t like … whether high heat and humidity or unrelenting rain or snow … which had the psychological impact of making us miserable and depressed?

What has happened is that our learned experience has caused us to put mental labels on everything that we experience … labels that something is good or bad … which interfere with our perception of the true quality of things. When a sensory image goes from the eyes, nose, or ears to the brain, it is these labels that impact how the images are received. Our conscious mind does not receive them neutrally.

The point here is that heat, rain, cold, snow, etc. are neither good nor bad … they just are. Our perception of the “lousy” weather may seem very real to us, but it’s all a function of our mind and thus illusory, not a reflection of reality.

Once I understood this deeply, my relationship with the weather changed completely. Now I never apply a label to the weather and I see the beauty to the texture of each day’s weather, regardless its nature.

And so it is with all things. Whether it’s your income status, your occupation, your weight, or whatever ... your feelings or perceptions of these matters, the labels you apply to them, are a function of your learned experience from family, peers, and the larger culture. They seem very real, but they have no intrinsic value or existence.

So when I was reacting to some matters that hit much closer to home with fear and anxiety, I realized that beyond being present in the moment free of thought, I needed to apply the lessons of freeing myself from labels. I consciously went through the types of feelings I was having and saw that these too were just labels that I instinctually was applying. They had no more intrinsic value than the labels that I had applied to the weather.

Then, it was up to me to make the choice not to apply the labels but to see things as they are free of the intervention of thought. Which I have for the most part been able to do. You can too.

Consumed by Fear

10/16/2013

Dear Hanh Niem,

I’m desperate. I’ve been practicing for years, meditating almost every day. But my life is like a seesaw. Much of the time I experience peace and happiness. But much of the time I am so gripped by the baggage of my past that I am consumed by a fear and anxiety that will not let me out of its grasp. I have tried focusing on my breathing and other methods, but nothing gets this monkey off my bank till I almost literally collapse from mental exhaustion.

Consumed By Fear

Dear Consumed By Fear,

You are not alone. Our habit-energies are very strong and entrenched, having been built over a lifetime, and so freeing ourselves from the fear, anxiety, and frustration they cause is a difficult task. But it is a doable task.

One can certainly not fight them or argue with them. That just strengthens them. And one cannot just redirect one’s attention by focusing on our breathing, in effect ignoring them, because as you have experienced, they will not be ignored.

Instead, one must revolt against the tyranny of the past, your habit-energies. The language I’m using may sound like fighting, and thus at odds with what I just said, but this is not about a fight. This is about a visceral revolt, a decision on your part that you will not follow your habit-energies anymore.

If one is aware, one has a choice. One can either go where your habit-energies take you and suffer the consequences, or you can say to them, “I have compassion for you and where you’re coming from, but you are the past. I’m not going there anymore. I am seeking guidance now from my true Buddha nature and I have faith that if I live each moment well, the future will take care of itself, all will be well regardless of what life throws my way. I will always have my inner strength and will experience joy because I will always offer others joy and help relieve the suffering of others, regardless of the situation I’m in.”

This may sound very simple-minded, but it is effective. The two requirements, of course, are that you are aware and that you have made this decision. Being aware as you well know is a challenge in and of itself, but there are various methods I’ve discussed in my posts to help you increase your awareness, your being present free of the intervention of thought, throughout the day.

Making the decision is up to you. And this is not as silly a point as it may sound. Just like the question I raised in my post, “Do You Really Want to Be at Peace and Content?” the answer may well be, “of course,” and yet we aren’t willing to take the steps, to do what needs to be done in order to reach that point. Whether it’s acceptance or letting go of our habit-energies, we often are not willing to take that step. There is comfort in the known, even if it is painful. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Trying to Live the Purpose Driven Life

10/1/2013

Dear Hanh Niem,

I am not a Buddhist, I am a Christian, but I read your blog post “The Ultimate Failure of Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life,” which directed me here. It is indeed a wonderful, inspiring book. And I have been able to implement many aspects of the purpose driven life that it sets forth. But I have found it impossible, although I have surrendered myself to God, to love all others regardless how difficult they may be or what they have done. Even within my family, although I certainly love them, I find myself acting in ways which don’t manifest that love. Given the importance of loving others to fulfilling God’s purpose for us, I am at a loss as to what to do. The book doesn’t really offer any further help. Where do I start?

Trying to Live the Purpose Driven Life

Dear Trying to Live the Purpose Driven Life,

Thank you for writing. As I stated in that blog post (http://PreservingAmericanGreatness.blogspot.com), the barrier to loving others, treating them as you would wish to be treated yourself, is your ego. The problem is not the Devil, it is our ego.

Since you are not a Buddhist and probably have not read Buddhist texts, let me back up here for a minute. In our culture, the ego is generally considered to be who we are. the expression of ourselves. It is thus looked at positively, except if one has too big an ego.

In Buddhism, the ego is not who we are; it is not our true self. Instead, it is the result of the accretion of all of our learned experiences ... from family, peers, and our culture. We act and think as we act and think because of our ego-mind, because of these experiences. The ego is the home of all our neuroses which are at their core formed by the insecurities we have learned from our experiences. It is the source of all our frustration, anger, greed, envy ... the source of all our suffering.

If we are not our ego, you naturally will ask, then who are we? In Buddhism, the teaching is that we are all born essentially perfect with the true Buddha nature inside us. That remains constant throughout our lives. That is who we truly are. But it becomes buried beneath all of our learned experiences. They are like the clouds that hide the sky, which is always blue and sunny, even on a grey day. As so we lose touch with our true self.

Buddhism is about finding our way back to our true self. Of making contact with it and allowing it to guide our lives rather than our ego.

For a Christian, I don’t think the distinction between ego and self exists. But you can be saved by turning your will and life over to the service of Christ and God. As Rick Warren puts it, “If not to God, you will surrender to the opinions or expectations of others, to money, to resentment, to fear, or to your own pride, lusts, or ego. [Actually, all these things are manifestations of the ego.] ... You are free to choose, what you surrender to but you are not free from the consequence of that choice.”

Whether Christian or Buddhist, there is indeed a choice. But it is far from a simple one. Neither by just surrendering your will to God nor to your true Buddha nature will you be free of your ego’s habit-energies. The ego is far too strong, being the principal source of the self-image that you have been developing throughout your life.

So how then do you free yourself from your ego? My books and the various posts on this site all speak to this issue and its challenge. But stated most simply, in terms that relate to your background:

1. You must discern that your ego, not the Devil, is driving you in directions that are contrary to the lessons of The Purpose Driven Life. This acknowledgment of your ego's nature and its control of your life is central as it is an acknowledgment of responsibility.

2. You must understand that your ego habit-energies are all learned. They are a product of your environment. There is nothing inherent or natural about them, even though they seem very natural to you and are supported by the culture around you.

3. You must learn to accept your life as it is right now because it’s just the way it is, and love yourself unconditionally and have compassion for yourself and others. Without true acceptance, you fall into our culture’s trap of always wanting what you don’t have and of being beset by insecurity and fear.

4. You must make a decision to surrender your ego to God and turn your will and your life over to His care ... totally.

5. You must be aware when your ego-mind arises, acknowledge it, have compassion for it, but say clearly that your have given your life over to the service of God and take your guidance now from His teachings.

6. You must become increasingly present, free of the intervention of thought, because only when you are in that state can you see things as they really are as opposed to how your ego, your thinking-mind, sees them. Only then can ego-centered strivings cease. Only then will your mind rest undisturbed and you will find true peace and happiness, free of fear and anxiety. Only then will you know directly, from your heart not some teaching, that your only purpose in life is to offer others joy and to help relieve the suffering of others.

Surrendering your ego does not mean that you will live a life with no direction and with no accomplishments; that you will not be engaged in life. Instead, it means that your direction and your actions will come from your heart, your purpose driven life, not your ego.

Our egos will always be part of us, but we do not have to allow them to control our lives. There is another way. We do have a choice. Although my books, with the exception of Raising a Happy Child, are written for Buddhists I think you would find them helpful.

Want to Smile

9/13/2013

Dear Hanh Niem,

I have been practicing for many years and meditate daily. I am in general at peace and content and accept my life and the world around me as being as it is at this moment. I experience moments of happiness and joy. But every time I look in the mirror, I see a serious, almost frowning, tense face looking back at me. Even when I feel at peace, I feel a tension within me. I rarely feel truly relaxed. Can you help?

Want to Smile

Dear Want to Smile,

You are not alone. I myself, and I’m sure many others, have experienced what you are describing. When I first became aware of this years ago, I purposefully brought a smile to my face and found that this in turn brought an immediate uplift to my spirits. Just releasing the facial tension made me feel lighter and filled with happiness. This is what Thich Nhat Hanh calls “mouth yoga.” But I found that the smile and its impact were fleeting because it was mechanical and I was quickly distracted.

Then one day while meditating, I realized that if I were able to be aware every moment of the wonderful things in my life right then at each moment, without attaching, I would smile mindfully and naturally every moment. Even if I was focused on some concern of mine, I would at the same time be mindful of the things that brought joy to my life.

That was my first effort. And this practice worked, at least as long as I worked it. And when I didn’t, the frown and tension returned.

Obviously, smiling mindfully was a bandaid; something deeper continued to pull me away from the path. This experience raised a question in my mind … if I was generally in a state of peace and contentment, then why was the default status of my face a frown or tense expression?

Generally we frown for various reasons … our culture is so focused on wanting what we don't have (not necessarily something material) and on proving ourselves through competition, and we are so attached to the past and obsessed with the future that most of us are in an almost constant state of some degree of frustration or concern, whether consciously or not. If we are frustrated, we are not happy, and that agitation shows in our facial expression.

Was my frowning a sign of deep underlying frustrations and insecurities in my gut that my practice had not yet touched? Were the troubles of the world and especially U.S. politics so overburdening and vexing? As a Buddhist I derive joy from the happiness of others, but the corollary is also true, I derive sadness from the pain of others and we are made aware of such pain every day.

Or was this default position merely a product of decades of negative muscle training brought about by my samsara-filled life? I know from my baby photos and family anecdotes that before I was burdened by my ego and learned experience I always had a smile on my face. My father called me his “sunshine.”

My hunch was, “all of the above.” But more recently as a result of my practice of being present in the moment free of the intervention of thought, I realized that the principal underlying reason for my facial tension is that while I may be present free of conscious thought, my subconscious is always thinking. It is indeed in an almost constant state of some degree of frustration or concern. And so long as my subconscious is in that state there would always be an underlying tenseness in me.

What to do? I reflected on the fact that when I am tense or upset, by focusing on my breathing I can quickly return to a space of peace and calm. The focus on my breathing takes me out of myself, meaning out of my thinking mind, my ego. That is also what we do during meditation. And that I knew was precisely what I needed to stop this background noise of subconscious thought.

And so I tried an experiment. One day, I tried to be constantly aware of my breath, and, at the suggestion of a friend, relax my body with each breathing out. Surprisingly I found this easier and more natural than anything I had previously tried to increase my periods of awareness. Regardless of what I was doing, I found I was able at the same time to be conscious of my breath for much of the day.

And by so doing, I was present free of not just conscious thought, but as the day went on, I felt that I was also free of subconscious thought because without question my facial muscles relaxed. I was not smiling, but my face was relaxed. And I felt deeply relaxed.

I have continued this practice for several days now and the results have been noticeable. After a lifetime of compulsively analytical thought about my life and everything around me, which was entrenched in my subconscious, focusing on my breathing throughout the day, together with relaxing my body on breathing out, has pulled me out of my ego-mind and allowed me to reach a new stage in my practice

The question now is whether I will have the discipline to continue this practice or, like other efforts I have made in this regard, become lazy and distracted, pulled away by my old habit-energies. Staying mindful throughout the day is always a challenge.

How to Stop Striving

9/3/2013

Dear Hanh Niem,

I am someone who has always been driven to accomplish something, whether it’s in my work, my hobbies, or within my family. And it both frustrates me, because I rarely am able to accomplish what I set out to, and it tires me. Whenever I try to tell myself that I don’t “need” to do these things, my mind shoots back at me, “So, you just want to be a failure and do nothing?” I am so tired.

How to Stop Striving?

Dear How to Stop Striving,

The bottom line to freeing yourself from the compulsion to succeed at something is to understand that you’ve nothing to prove ... to yourself or anyone else. This of course, as with most lessons in the Buddha dharma, runs counter to all of our learned experience, the messages we get from our family, peers, and the culture we live in. So freeing yourself from this compulsion is no easy matter. But it can be done, and in an incremental way.

The first step is to believe, as the Buddha taught, that you were born with the true Buddha nature inside you, essentially perfect, and that it is now and will always be there. It may not be apparent or visible to you because it has gotten buried under the weight of years of learned experience, but it is still there, waiting and available to support you. Your learned experience is like the clouds that hide the blue sky that is always there, your true Buddha nature.

The second step is to understand, at first intellectually, that your desire to succeed is in fact a function of your learned experience. And that as such it has no intrinsic existence, it is not inherent within you ... it is learned, it is dependent. It is your ego-mind, your thinking mind, talking; it is not you. This provides the key to start breaking through the clouds.

The third step is, armed with this understanding, to begin to accept yourself as you are. Knowing that the your compulsions are learned and have no inherent value should make it easier for you to gain some distance between yourself and these compulsions. As the saying goes, “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. If I am disturbed it is because something out there is not the way I want it to be and I will find no peace until I am able to accept that things are the way they are because it’s just the way they are.”

The fourth step, now that you’ve begun to discriminate between the what your ego-mind, your thinking mind is telling you and what your true Buddha nature is telling you, is to start the practice of being present free of the intervention of thought and not engaging your thoughts when they arise.

As you meditate on these steps, you will feel progress in an incremental way. Do not expect that you will all of a sudden feel free of your compulsions. But you will start to get glimpses of your true Buddha nature in your acts of kindness and in other ways. Your understanding that these “needs” are not inherent within you will deepen. You will find it easier to accept yourself and love yourself unconditionally as you are. And you will find it easier to to be present, to not be pulled this way and that by your thinking mind.

This process, which is so central to walking the Buddhist path, is elaborated on in many of my blog and advice posts as well as my books. I encourage you to read more deeply about the process in order to support your efforts to free yourself from your ego-mind. Do not underestimate its power.

Finally, one day after you’ve been working this practice ... it may be months or years ... you will come to know directly, from your gut or your heart, that you have nothing to prove. That indeed you have never had anything to prove. Then you will be free of the compulsion to succeed. You will still work and do the things that you find real value in, but it will be because of their intrinsic value, not because of some end-point that you are trying to reach.