by Om Swami
But quite often client or project issues would crop up in a part of the world where it was daytime while I was just about to go to sleep in my timezone. Occasionally I would get up in the middle of the night and think, ‘Oh, I want to go back to sleep.’Try as I might, I couldn’t because work was on my mind. I would be thinking, ‘Tomorrow morning I have to get onto this immediately.’
At that time, I would tell my mind: ‘Listen, mind, right now I need to sleep. Let me. When I get up in the morning, we’ll have a good chat. Then I will talk to you and you will tell me your problems. I know you are my friend, and you tell me what I should focus on. I am not denying you or rejecting you. I want to listen to you, but please bear with me for the next few hours.’
99 per cent of the time it worked.
Try this any day. And when you get up in the morning, make sure you honour your commitment. Ask your mind, ‘Okay, what were you saying last night?’
Thoughts and emotions come like an aandhi, a raging storm. In those times, you just have to take cover and revisit your issues when everything has settled and is calm. That’s what I meant by emptiness and mindfulness. If you are aware, mindfulness allows self-dialogue to make room, where your thoughts and emotions can put aside all the messages they like. This is only possible with mindfulness.
Dealing with your emotions is not just a matter of comfort. Imagine you are walking on a railway platform and a train is going through the station. Your bag gets caught on it as it passes and you fall. The train then drags you along the platform and you get bruised. You quickly have to let go of your bag to have any hope of surviving. We all have these bags of emotions that we hold on to and at crucial times you let go of those emotions in order to not get hurt.
A constant commitment to mindfulness and an understanding of the core philosophy of emptiness and impermanence helps us see our pain and adversities in a different light. It no longer feels like suffering which according to the sutra doesn’t exist either, even suffering is empty.
Nothing is born, O Shariputra.
Nothing dies…
There is no suffering and no attainment of any kind … There is nothing to gain or lose…16
The Illusion of Suffering
Prajna Paramita Sutra – III
Buddha’s emphasis on emptiness, of all things, makes us wonder if there’s any sense in taking life seriously. Most of us see all our challenges, adversities and resistance in life as suffering. But then, putting aside the argument of emptiness, is it really suffering or merely an illusion of it?
A man died and found himself in the other world. His karmic account was checked and an angel led him to a beautiful place.
‘You can enjoy here as much as you like,’ the angel told him. ‘There is nothing you have to do – everything is taken care of. You want food, housekeeping, music, anything, just wish for it and it’ll come to you. You won’t gain weight or fall sick. Whatever, whenever, and however; you want to have any fun, no problem...’
He couldn’t believe his luck for he knew that he had hurt lots of people, told enough lies, done plenty of bad things to not deserve heaven and yet, here he was. ‘This is a miracle!’ he exclaimed. He pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
In fact, most spiritual people also think like this. They believe that walking the path of enlightenment means they will just immerse themselves in dhyana (meditation) or bhakti (prayers) and won’t have anything to do with the mad race everyone else is in. I was one such seeker myself at one time (and boy, was I mistaken!). This is a very childish way of thinking.
However, here was this man who found himself in a place where all was only ever well and he began enjoying the existence of his dreams. Within a mere week, however, he was so bored that he went to the angel and said, ‘I’d like to do something. You need to give me some work. I’m well educated, there must be plenty I can do around here.’
‘Sir,’ he replied, ‘there is no work here, no jobs, no tests. You simply have to enjoy yourself.’
The man tried to live that life but couldn’t. He pleaded again a week later, protesting that he was terribly bored.
‘Damn it,’ he shouted, ‘I need something to do. This place is like hell.’
‘Sir,’ the angel replied calmly, ‘and where exactly do you think you are? This is hell.’
One of the greatest illusions – or even delusions – people have is of a life where they are comfortably sitting, relaxing and having no stress at all; just enjoying themselves. Everybody, at some point in time, dreams of a life like that; one with no stress. The delusion is that somehow it could be a happy life, but nothing could be further from the truth.
A life where there are no challenges is unfulfilling. It’s a very boring life, one not worth living, assuming it’s even bearable. Pain is an essential part of our spiritual progress. Whether our challenges are self-imposed or forced upon us, they make us work, think and appreciate the more desirable aspects of life. For a seed to sprout, it has to push through the earth – it must go against gravity. The harderit pushes through the earth, the more against the gravity it can go. The taller it will grow, the more it will flourish.
This is why many rich people are very bored with their lives – especially those who inherit their wealth. There is little challenge or the joy of exhilaration upon accomplishing something after tremendous hard work. By no means am I saying that the lives of rich people are easy. I have known enough such people and was even blessed with decent wealth myself at one point to know that life is anything but rosy. It may be full, but not necessarily fulfilling. And when that is the case, we often search for a purpose.
Buddha, however, posited that all is emptiness and that living a moderate and mindful life is the way to go. All said, my personal view is that Buddha initiated thousands of people into monkhood which was hardly the path of moderation. It was austere and the path of deprivation. Nevertheless, his words on emptiness and transience are priceless. He instructs Shariputra further in the Heart Sutra:
iha śāriputra: sarva-dharmā śūnyatā-lak a ā, anut pannā aniruddhā, amalā avimalā, anūnā aparipūr ā.
tasmāc chāriputra śūnyatayā na rūpa na vedanā na sa jñā nasa skārā na vijñānam. na cak u -śrotra-ghrāna-jihvā-kāya-manā si. na rūpa-śabda-gandha-rasa-spra avaya-dharmāh.
Na cak ūr-dhātur. yāvan na manovijñāna-dhātu. na-avidyāna-avidyā-k ayo. Yāvan na jarā-mara am na jarā-mara a-k ayo. na duhkha-samudaya-nirodha-margā.
Na jñānam, na prāptir na-aprāpti.
Here Shariputra, all dharmas are defined by emptiness. There is no birth or destruction, purity or defilement, completeness or deficient.17
Therefore, Shariputra, in emptiness there is no Form, no sensation, no perception, no memory, no consciousness. No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. No shape, no sound, no smell, no taste, no feeling, no thoughts. No element of perception from eye to conceptual consciousness. No ignorance, nor the end of ignorance, or no to old age and death nor end of old age and death. No suffering, no cause, no relief, nor path. No knowledge, no attainment, and no non-attainment.
Buddha went on to tell his favourite and rebellious disciple that the essence of all things was empty. One big illusion. Nothing is born. Nothing dies. Anut panna aniruddha, amala avimala. Nothing is pure or tainted. Anuna aparipurnah. Nothing increases or decreases. In emptiness, there is no form. There is actually no suffering, and there is no attainment of any kind. There is nothing to be gained. There is nothing to lose. It’s all empty.
When you have a quiet moment, please reflect on this: What is all this rushing about for? Really, what are we struggling for in life?
We tend to visualize ourselves in better homes with bigger bedrooms, bathrooms and gardens, better cars, and wearing more expensive clothes, shoes and jewellery. And having all kinds of stuff – more expensive things; newer models of things – all that we work very hard for and have absolutely no time to enjoy. We have given ourselves no room t
o ‘live’; we have filled our emptiness, the emptiness of life, not with beauty or bliss but discontentment. These are not just desires, hopes and expectations. The truth is we are fundamentally discontent with what we have. And if you are not content, you cannot be happy.
Emptiness does not mean you no longer enjoy life. That happens in depression, when you just don’t have the energy or the motivation to do anything, and you can’t seem to enjoy anything. Coming to terms with emptiness is the understanding that no matter how deep your struggle, any joy you gain is going to be short-lived. All joys, all pleasures are momentary. So is it worth the effort?
This is a question for all of us, but as a monk, I can give you an example: everywhere I go, people want me to build an ashram. And people are so generous and loving that it baffles me completely at times.
They say, ‘Swami, you just give the green signal and we will do the rest. We’ll fund and build all the necessary infrastructure, etc. We promise to not burden you with any operational headaches. You just show up every year, even for a week, and we will be happy.’
I could think like a materialistic person and say, ‘Wow, let me grow, let more people know me and let my message spread,’and so on. But always in the seed of expansion is the spore of destruction. What will such reckless expansion of ashrams all across the world accomplish? Is more always better? I am not averse to the idea of having what’s necessary to sustain organic growth but not much beyond that.
Beneath this mindfulness is the underlying philosophy that everything is empty. What is the need to continuously expand? A need where you can’t even manage yourself or the people whom are looking up to you. For me, it’s much better to have fewer, but truly serious people.
When you have the option in life to do more, which could be in the guise of progress, think to yourself, ‘Is this really what I want to do?’ Because once you take a step forward, you are two steps away from going back to square one. So before you think about this relentless pursuit of expansion and going here and there and building a business and making it bigger and grander, pause for a moment.
Growing, sometimes even at the cost of profitability, is a temptation that’s almost irresistible for even the most business savvy entrepreneurs. To take loans and grow, to borrow and grow, is usually a ridiculous thing to do. In my humble opinion, it’s better to be small, niche player and be good at what you do. Similarly, you are where you are in your lives. All of you have some talents, all of you have some skills – something to offer. You decide if you want to keep growing.
Bear in mind that growth is an illusion created predominantly by the Western media. Or maybe it’s the soul of capitalism. I couldn’t conclude with certainty. Over the last century, we have come to equate progress only with growth and expansion. If today I am making $100 and next year I make another $100, it is not good enough – I did not grow. But that is not necessarily the best way to look at things in life. Sometimes you have to decide what is most important for you. Ask yourself, do I need to be at peace or do I need to grow?
Sometimes, when I am with a closed group of devotees, I say, growing is easy. You can build infrastructure at the snap of a finger, but remember, these moments where we can sit down for a quiet meal will go away.
There is a story I wrote on my blog a while ago. A rich man went to a village because he wanted to buy some land there. He stayed there late in the afternoon and decided to stay overnight rather than go back to the city. Just then he saw a little hotel.
‘Do you have a room?’ he asked at the concierge. There was a room available he was told but the businessman insisted on inspecting it first before taking it for the night.
‘We require a $100 deposit to show the room,’ the manager said. ‘If you don’t like it, you can take your money back.’
The man put a $100 bill on the counter and a bellboy was asked to show him the room.
The manager owed the next-door grocer $100 so he ran there and said, ‘Here’s your money. Now I don’t owe you anything.’
The hotel manager was now debt-free. But the grocer owed a dairy farmer $100. He rushed to the farmer and said, ‘Thank you for giving me milk on credit. Here’s the $100 I owed you. Now we are square.’
This farmer owed $100 to a policeman who in turned owed it a woman. She owed the hotel manager $100 and went to the hotel and gave him the money to settle her account.
During this time, the rich man came back down after seeing the hotel room and said, ‘I didn’t quite like it. I think I’ll leave.’
‘No worries, sir,’ the manager replied. ‘Here is your $100.’ The man went on his way and the whole village was debt-free. Everyone was happy because now nobody owed anything to anybody.
This is the sum-total of all Karmic transactions in one’s life. You owe some people, some people owe you. And we keep doing this accounting: ‘Oh, this person did this to me. I am going to teach them a lesson. How dare they!’ Or ‘This person owes me but he did not pay,’ and so on … All these things will continue, but the sum-total is emptiness, absolutely zero. In the end, none of this will matter.
If you keep that in mind – for which you have to learn to sit quietly and be in the present moment – most things in life will not bother you.
Imagine watching a movie, but on mute. Even the most emotional scenes would appear funny to you because you can’t hear what the characters are saying, while they would seem animated, waving their arms about.
Similarly, when you are having an angry conversation, just record it. Now everybody has smartphones, so it’s easy to do this. Record the conversation and play it back later; you will see the ridiculousness of the whole episode. You won’t believe that you could act in such a manner. Of course, out of ego, you may still think the other person was wrong and that your point of view was justified, but it would appear funny to you nevertheless. That’s why in Zen they give these anecdotes, cryptic stories or jokes, called koans, and you ponder over them, wondering what they are about. Arguably, the most famous is a student asking his master how to gain enlightenment and the master asked in return if he knew the sound of one-hand clapping. This awakened him.
So, two Zen monks were walking, and one of them said, ‘Look at those trees, how beautiful they are!’
While the other monk looked up at the trees, the first ones lapped him hard on his head.
The second monk asked, ‘What was that for?!’
The first monk replied, ‘I am a Zen monk. I can get away with anything.’
A mindful person can get away with any thought without it overpowering him.
If you ponder these cryptic anecdotes, sometimes a meaning dawns on you. You recognize that situations occur in your life which are similar, in some way, to the story. Sometimes, you just have to give these situations a bit of time. Reflect on them and you will know why they occurred – if why is important to you – or upon reflection you might get an insight on how to go about resolving the issue.
‘Only when insight dawns on you,’the Buddha says, ‘can you then rise above your delusions, your fears and your emotions.’
In all your low moments, only what comes from within you can help you. How do you come out of a negative emotion? You take some action. Your mind says, ‘Okay, do this, it will help you.’ Maybe talk to somebody, switch on the lights, break a window (hopefully not) – it will help you.
All thoughts and suggestions come from your mind. If your mind can guide you objectively and realistically, then you would come out of that emotion faster. There is a common misconception people have about meditation – of any kind. People think that it will make you calm. There is some truth in this, but the act of meditation itself won’t calm you. You have to be calm before you can meditate. Meditation is your training to be calm afterwards, when you step out into the world. Otherwise, if you are just trying to be calm, there are a million other ways to do that.
A lady came to me once and said, ‘Swami, when I meditate I always fall asleep.’
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�You are very lucky,’ I told her. ‘Please just go to sleep. What’s wrong in that? And when you wake up, meditate at that time.’
Don’t set rigid goals for yourself. That’s certainly not the Zen way. Allow yourself to fall asleep when you are falling asleep. Meditation is what you do to train your mind to tackle situations when you are not meditating.
All our promises of love (just look at how easily people fall out), our acquisitions, our view of ourselves have no permanence to it at the end of the day.
A young couple were having one of those conversations:
‘If I die tomorrow, will you marry somebody else?’ the wife asked.
‘Never!’ the husband replied. ‘How could you even think that?’
‘But let’s say, I do,’ the wife persisted.‘Please marry someone.’
‘Okay, if you insist. But I don’t think I could live with anyone else.’
A few minutes later, she asked him if the new woman would live in their current home, if she would sleep in the same bedroom, or if she would use her kitchen, etc. To all this the man wisely replied, ‘no’.
Another twenty minutes later, she brought up the topic again and asked, ‘Will you let her wear my clothes and shoes?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ the man said. Intending to continue with ‘of course, not’, he had a Freudian slip when he blurted, ‘Your clothes won’t fit her anyway.’
Most of the love people express in words is not true. It’s just diplomacy or transient emotions, if not plain white lies – people going with the flow and making all these promises that today they really believe could change tomorrow. That is transience: it’s all temporary.
This is the shortest route to detachment – if you have the insight that all of this is empty. One day, the person I love will no longer be there in my life. She may move on or I may move on. If I die first, I will no longer be there in her life. Everything I hold dear – my wisdom, beauty, health– is going to decay. Nothing is going to stay with me. I can cling to my money as much as I like, but one day I will die, and I don’t know who will do what to that wealth. Nothing is going to last because all of this is empty. I will be separated from the people I love. This mindfulness of our world leads to what Buddha called the Perfection of Wisdom. An irreversible insight.