by Pema Chodron
Shantideva cautions us, however, not to get discouraged by the discomfort of letting go of old habits. He has unshakable confidence that we can stop being slaves to the kleshas and experience the open, unbiased nature of our mind. He also knows that we have to discover this for ourselves, and that we’ll never be able to do it if we give up every time we’re challenged.
6.14
There’s nothing that does not grow light
Through habit and familiarity.
Putting up with little cares
I’ll train myself to bear with great adversity.
Having encouraged us to not be put off by the pain encountered on the path, Shantideva now gives more advice for working with this discomfort skillfully. The first instruction was to reframe the way we view this pain and regard it in a positive light.
Now he gives teachings on staying present with even the greatest misery. Because it’s almost impossible to start training in times of great adversity, we’re instructed to start with little cares. Being patient with slight irritations and annoyances prepares us to remain calm when challenges increase. Likewise, becoming familiar with the initial restlessness of impatience and milder forms of anger prepares us to relate wisely when kleshas intensify.
Dzongsar Khyentse calls our minor inconveniences “bourgeois suffering.” We could practice patience when we arrive at our favorite restaurant and it’s closed; or, when we reserve an aisle seat on the airplane and end up in the middle. In the next two verses, we’re advised not to fret about the bourgeois suffering of insect bites, hunger pangs, or the weather. Fretting will only aggravate our troubles, until even little things seem like catastrophes. By practicing patience, we can learn to deescalate negativity while it’s relatively easy to do.
6.15
And do I not already bear with common irritations—
Bites and stings of snakes and flies,
Experiences of hunger and of thirst,
And painful rashes on my skin?
6.16
Heat and cold, the wind and rain,
Sickness, prison, beatings—
I’ll not fret about such things.
To do so only aggravates my trouble.
Homo sapiens are very good at making matters worse. We’ve practically perfected it. Shantideva is showing us how to change that by practicing patience rather than practicing fretting.
6.17
There are some whose bravery increases
At the sight of their own blood,
While some lose all their strength and faint
When it’s another’s blood they see!
6.18
This results from how the mind is set,
In steadfastness or cowardice.
And so I’ll scorn all injury,
And hardships I will disregard!
Our first reactions to the world are based on many things: history, personality, and conditioning of all kinds. The sight of blood, to use Shantideva’s example, will make one person faint and another feel strong.
The point here is to not mistake our relative reactions for absolute truth. If the sight of blood upsets us, we can’t really blame the blood. It isn’t what happens to us that makes us happy or unhappy; it is how the mind is set. What makes us suffer is the way we think about what’s happening. This is another crucial message: our story lines aggravate our troubles.
6.19
When sorrows fall upon the wise,
Their minds remain serene and undisturbed.
For in their war against defiled emotion,
Many are the hardships, as in every battle.
Dzigar Kongtrul has an analogy for reframing our attitude toward hardships encountered on the path. He compares them to the pain of an injection, which we gladly accept in order to cure our illness. Likewise, we’re not deterred by the short-term discomfort of refraining from the kleshas because we know this will heal the long-term suffering they cause. By encouraging ourselves this way, we gradually learn to relax and stay lucid, even in the most sorrowful times.
6.20
Thinking scorn of every pain,
And vanquishing such foes as hatred:
These are exploits of a conquering hero.
The rest is slaying what is dead already!
In ordinary battle, soldiers kill those who, like all of us, will die sooner or later. This is what Shantideva means by slaying what is dead already. By killing, however, they strengthen habits of aggression that will last far longer than any adversary.
The greatest heroes and heroines are not those who fight out of hatred, trapped in the bias of right and wrong, but those who patiently face hardships to gain victory over anger, prejudice, and war. The point of Shantideva’s analogy is that no one is more worthy of respect than someone brave enough to refrain from escalating the kleshas.
Having made the point that awakening requires courage, Shantideva will now present a positive outlook on suffering.
6.21
Suffering also has its worth.
Through sorrow, pride is driven out
And pity felt for those who wander in samsara;
Evil is avoided, goodness seems delightful.
Shantideva cites three benefits of pain. First it is valuable because through sorrow, pride is driven out. No matter how arrogant and condescending we’ve been, great suffering can humble us. The pain of a serious illness or loss of a loved one can be transformative, softening us and making us less self-centered.
The second benefit of pain is empathy: the compassion felt for those who wander in samsara. Our personal suffering brings compassion for others in the same situation. A young woman was telling me that when her baby died, she felt a deep connection to all the other parents who had lost children. This was, as she put it, the unexpected blessing of her sorrow.
With sadness, we realize that we’re all in the same predicament. We’re all caught by the kleshas and continually blocking our basic goodness. Here Shantideva expresses compassion for everyone wandering in samsara, especially those with no interest in finding freedom.
The third value of suffering is that evil is avoided and goodness seems delightful. When we practice according to Shantideva’s instructions, we can get smarter about cause and result. Based on this understanding, we’ll have less inclination to cause harm, and more desire to gather virtue and benefit others. This is the “eager faith” I talked about before: we’re eager to live our lives in ways that dismantle the habits that cause us so much grief. We are eager to increase our compassion, wisdom, and happiness.
These are the three values of suffering: it humbles us; it causes us to feel compassion for others in the same situation; and, because we begin to understand the workings of karma, it motivates us to not add to our burden of pain when we could lighten the load.
This ends the section on the first kind of patience: the patience that comes from reframing how we regard the vicissitudes of the spiritual path.
Verses 22 through 33 present the patience that comes from seeing the complex reality of any situation. These instructions can be used on the spot, whenever we realize we’re hooked by the kleshas. They are reminders for remaining steady under pressure.
6.22
I am not angry with my bile and other humors—
Fertile source of pain and suffering!
So why should I resent my fellow creatures,
Victims, too, of like conditions?
Why is it that we don’t get angry when suffering is caused by something inanimate, like an illness, but when suffering is caused by our fellow human beings, we’re quick to feel resentment?
If a branch drops on our head, we assume it fell from a tree and rub our head, and that’s that. But what if someone intentionally threw that b
ranch? Could we cool down by remembering that this person is a victim of his habitual patterns, that we’re all victims, too, of like conditions?
Until we start working with our mind, we are ruled by our emotions. They take us over until we’re no longer in control. When we get angry with others, we could remember that, just like us, they do what they do for complex reasons, not the least of which is being controlled by their emotions. At times, we may feel completely justified in being hateful. Yet when someone harms us, we might ask ourselves this: Why aren’t we just as enraged by falling branches?
If we reply that “the harm that person caused me is intentional,” we might want to question our logic. For all of us, unpleasant feelings arise uninvited and quickly pull us in. If we don’t see it happening, we won’t refrain from acting out, and inevitably we’ll cause harm.
It’s so sadly predictable how everyone gets trapped. Reflecting on this cultivates understanding rather than resentment for all beings, including ourselves.
6.23
For though they are unlooked for, undesired,
These ills afflict us all the same.
And likewise, though unwanted and unsought,
Defilements nonetheless are quick to come.
6.24
Never thinking, “Now I will be angry,”
People are impulsively caught up in anger.
Irritation, likewise, comes—
Though never plans to be experienced!
A neutral event such as a fallen branch can result in various reactions: an emotional explosion, relaxation, or even laughter. Our response depends on how we’ve worked with our emotions up to that point. We don’t set out to be angry, and likewise anger doesn’t set out to be experienced. But when causes and conditions come together, we impulsively get caught up and swept away. Patience, Shantideva infers, is the antidote: in particular, the patience that comes from having sympathy for the complexity of our current situation.
6.25
Every injury whatever,
The whole variety of evil deeds
Is brought about by circumstances.
None is independent, none autonomous.
Verse 25 presents the same idea. This moment is part of a continuum; it doesn’t exist in isolation from all that came before. Our reaction to it is based on how we worked with our emotions previously, and our future depends on how we work with them right now. This is the crucial point.
6.26
Conditions, once assembled, have no thought
That now they will give rise to some result.
And that which is engendered does not think
That it has been produced by such conditions.
Our reactions are not as premeditated as we might think. They happen, Shantideva says again, because of past conditioning.
I once stayed with a friend whose dog has an uncontrollable fear of brooms. Just getting the broom out of the closet and starting to sweep sends the poor creature into a tailspin. Although he is no longer in danger of being harmed, he still reacts with terror. You can’t convince a dog not to be afraid of brooms, but you can work with your own mind and phobias.
We all have our “brooms.” We may never know what happened in the past to trigger our current response. But in this very moment, we can work with our mind and develop patience. We don’t have to spend a lifetime building up a case about the badness of brooms or the wrongness of our emotions.
6.27
That which is referred to as the Primal Substance,
That which has been labeled as the Self
Do not come into being thinking
“That is how I will arise.”
6.28
That which is not manifest is not yet there,
So what could want to come to be?
And permanently drawn toward its object,
It can never cease from being so.
6.29
Indeed! This Self, if permanent,
Is certainly impassible like space itself.
And should it meet with other factors,
How should they affect it, since it is unchanging?
6.30
If, when things occur, it stays unchanged and as before,
What influence has action had on it?
They say that this affects the Self,
But what connection could there be between them?
This section refutes the views of certain non-Buddhist schools of thought in Shantideva’s time. One school believed in a “primal substance”; another, in the atman, or “Self,” with a capital “S.” In brief, these were beliefs in an absolute, unchanging principle, similar to notions of a “soul” or “God.”
Because we long for certainty and something to hold on to, it’s very reassuring to believe in some permanent, external essence that underlies everything. While we play out our relative dramas of hope and fear, there’s no confusion in this underlying strata, which remains pure, unchanging, and undisturbed.
The Buddha, however, refuted such views. Nothing is unchanging or separate. The notion of an external, permanent essence is what Shantideva disproves here.
He is not, however, positing a belief in anything else. If we were to say “all is emptiness,” Shantideva would refute that too. His intention is to pull the rug out from under any fixed view or solidified way of thinking. Instead, he points us toward the indescribable openness of mind: a mind free from any conceptualization whatsoever.
What is the day-to-day relevance of these verses? It’s to give up creating more concepts. Don’t get trapped by set ideas of self, or other, or anything else. Don’t buy into the fixated thinking that results in anger.
Shantideva argues that any belief in a fixed or permanent entity doesn’t make sense. If it hadn’t yet manifested, then it could never come to be. If it already existed and was drawn in a certain direction, it could never cease from doing so. In other words, if things were fixed the way we think they are, then nothing could ever change!
6.31
All things, then, depend on something else;
On this depends the fact that none are independent.
Knowing this, we will not be annoyed at objects
That resemble magical appearances.
In the first two lines, Shantideva again says that all things are the result of complex causes and conditions: nothing exists independently. In the second two lines, he teaches on emptiness. Nothing is as it appears: we’re like dream people getting annoyed at dream objects. Experiencing this, even momentarily, we see the absurdity of working ourselves into a frenzy.
This teaching on the insubstantial nature of everything is an important one to contemplate when going through the pain of detox.
6.32
“Resistance,” you may say, “is out of place,
For what will be opposed by whom?”
The stream of suffering is cut through by patience;
There’s nothing inappropriate in wanting that!
Using Shantideva’s emptiness logic, we might say, “If everything is a magical appearance, what’s the point of practicing patience?” But Shantideva doesn’t buy this argument. Working with patience, he says, will end suffering. There’s nothing inappropriate in wanting that. He drops the philosophy and gets right to the point: we can’t use emptiness logic any more than we can use solidness logic to justify the continuation of suffering.
6.33
Thus, when enemies or friends
Are seen to act improperly,
Be calm and call to mind
That everything arises from conditions.
Here we experience Shantideva’s kind heart. He asks us to be calm. No matter who behaves improperly, enemies or friends, don’t get so heated up
and opinionated. Be calm and practice patience, in this case, by reflecting on the fact that why they do what they do is not so obvious. It arises from a variety of causes and conditions.
This ends the section on the second kind of patience: the patience that comes from realizing the complex reality of all situations. Verses 34 through 51 explore the third kind of patience: the patience that comes from developing tolerance.
6.34
If things occurred to living beings
Following their wishes and intentions,
How could sorrow ever come to them—
For there is no one who desires to suffer?
The Buddha taught that all beings wish to be happy and free of suffering. If this is so, Shantideva asks, why do we do such crazy things? As he’s pointed out before, our desire for comfort is not usually in sync with our methods for achieving it. In the following few verses he gives some poignant examples of our insanity.
6.35
Yet carelessly, all unaware,
They tear themselves on thorns and briars;
And ardent in pursuit of wives and goods,
They starve themselves of nourishment.
6.36
Some hang themselves or leap into the void,
Or eat bad food or swallow deadly poison,
Or by their evil conduct
Bring destruction on themselves.
6.37
For when affliction seizes them,
They kill themselves, the selves they love so much.
So how could they not be the cause
Of pain and suffering for others?
When consumed by passion, we stop eating and sleeping. We may break up marriages or betray our loved ones, oblivious to the pain we cause. We may even lie, steal, or kill ourselves. There are seemingly no limits to how far we’ll go to achieve happiness, even when we know this happiness has never lasted in the past. If we’re so willing to harm ourselves, it’s not hard to understand how we could harm others.