These Four Noble Truths, monks, are actual, unerring, not otherwise. Therefore, they are called noble truths. Samyutta Nikaya Buddha believed that dukkha ultimately arose from ignorance and false knowledge. Because of such a mental misalignment, all movement, thoughts and creation that flow out can never be wholly satisfactory.
In short, we can never be completely happy. The Eightfold Path is a practical and systematic way out of ignorance, eliminating dukkha from our minds and our lifestyle through mindful thoughts and actions. It is presented as a whole system, but the three paths associated with the area of mental cultivation are particularly relevant to the happiness that we can find in equanimity, or peace of mind.
If by leaving a small pleasure one sees a great pleasure, let a wise person leave the small pleasure and look to the great. Buddhism pursues happiness by using knowledge and practice to achieve mental equanimity.
In Buddhism, equanimity, or peace of mind, is achieved by detaching oneself from the cycle of craving that produces dukkha. So by achieving a mental state where you can detach from all the passions, needs and wants of life, you free yourself and achieve a state of transcendent bliss and well-being.
As described in the first verse of the Dhammapada, for Buddha, mental dysfunction begins in the mind. As mentioned earlier, the Eightfold Path as a whole is said to help one achieve these qualities. In particular, the areas of mental cultivation, which include right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration, are the mental skills and tools used for achieving happiness. The Buddha once described the mind as a wild horse. Once that is achieved, one perfects a wholesome, tranquil state of mind through the practice of positive thinking.
This ongoing effort promotes a state of mind that is conducive to the practice of mindfulness and concentration meditation. Mindfulness is one of the most influential teachings of Buddhism and has filtered into popular culture as well as modern psychotherapy. In a word, mindfulness is about experiencing the moment with an attitude of openness and freshness to all and every experience. Through right mindfulness, one can free oneself from passions and cravings, which so often make us prisoners of past regrets or future preoccupations.
A monk who with tranquil mind has chosen to live in a bare cell knows an unearthly delight in gaining a clearer and clearer perception of the true law. Right Concentration is a mental discipline that aims to transform your mind.
The first stage of concentration is one in which mental hindrances and impure intentions disappear and a sense of bliss is achieved. In the second stage, activities of the mind come to an end and only bliss remains. In the final stage, all sensations including bliss disappear and are replaced by a total peace of mind, which Buddha described as a deeper sense of happiness.
The disciples of Gautama are always well awake, and their minds day and night always delight in compassion. He taught truth and he also taught compassion because he saw personal happiness as related to the happiness of others, humans and otherwise.
Such a lesson is reflected in both the way he lived and the way he died. In life, it was said that the Buddha forewent Nirvana in order to teach others the keys to transcendence. In death, the story goes that a follower accidentally poisoned Buddha. I let go of wanting to solve any issues in my life. I let go of trying to be calm, or trying to be stressed.
I let go of trying be happy, I let go of trying to be sad. I let go of problem solving, and I let go of ideas of procrastination. It was just… letting go. And I realized at that moment that all my worries were tangled up this thick web of beliefs I had about what I should have been experiencing. Exactly where I wanted to be was hidden behind layers of beliefs. It was cloaked behind a thick forest of shoulds and should-nots.
To some extent, everyone seeking change and peace are initially guided by ideas. After a long process of meditation and journaling, I found that the nine beliefs l describe below are what we often hold onto unconsciously. While I had many fleeting moments of peace, they often felt as if they came on top of a background of noise and confusion. When I started to let go of these ideas, the inner peace became the background, and the noise became what would visit and leave.
It stems from our obsession with productivity and achievement, and it manifests as a constant, itching discontent. Though our ego tricks us into believing we need this feeling to get things done , when we can let it go we see a lot of our anxiety dissolves and our relaxation deepens. To overcome this, we need to be mindful of when we have the feeling that we need something before we can be happy.
The more capable we become at doing so, the more we will naturally experience happiness in the present, and the less our minds will fixate on ideas of the future for fulfillment. This is another myth that gets in the way. Many of us feel that we are far from inner peace, and we idolize those who seem to have found it. It is this process of turning your beliefs upside down that becomes the journey in itself.
This is common for responses that are considered socially inappropriate such as anger, fear, and sadness. This leads us, in adulthood, to believe that honest expression will be met with disapproval by others. The irony in this is that as everyone is dealing with the urge to be authentic, those that actually do so are often met with respect and admiration.
This is similar to the issue we have with emotional expressions. The reality is that you are a lot more than either of those stories, and people will gravitate toward the real you because they appreciate honesty. The Chinese made huge preparations with flowers, fruit and so on, and they insisted that we have a Chinese interpreter. So it went from Tibetan to Chinese to English, although some of my officials knew English.
At one point, the pile of fruit toppled over and then the Chinese officials, who had been very stuffy and formal before, got down on their hands and knees and crawled on the floor.
But it was very embarrassing for them. In Mexico City once, at an interfaith meeting, there was one Japanese priest. He had a rosary of beads in his hand and the string broke. He kept on thumbing his finger through the rosary even though the beads were all over the floor. He was too embarrassed to pick them up.
He was uncomfortable because of being so concerning about his appearance. Anyway, compassion, altruism, truthfulness, honesty — these are very important for bringing about inner calm, not concern about your external appearance. I never say that I am something special, but from my own experience I have no feeling of worry about how to behave in front of thousands of people.
If others make mistakes too, I just laugh. Now as for inner transformations, an inner transformation is speaking about an emotional level. These types of transformation come about automatically.
Others come about through effort and this is the main one that we want to bring about: inner transformation according to our wishes. This is the main meaning. Now here, we are not talking about our next life, salvation, or heaven, but how to maintain this life in a more happy and calm way despite difficulties and problems.
For this, the major factors that we have to deal with include anger, hatred, fear, jealousy, suspicion, loneliness, stress, and so on. All of these are related to our basic mental attitude. They come about from being too much self-centered. For us, when we experience these things, the self is of topmost importance and this brings about jealousy.
From cherishing ourselves, then, the slightest irritation brings about anger, and anger brings about fear. Because of that, we feel lonely. Basically, when we think about it, human nature is such that everybody appreciates friendliness.
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