Why can't practice constantly change our lives? Why does Buddhism, which makes many people thoroughly remould themselves and realize freedom, always fail when I come here? Maybe the answer is that we hold life too tightly.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, everything in life is too important for us, such as work, family, money, reputation and feelings. We hope that all these things are under control. Because of this, it is not enough to put all your energy into it, but also to insure your life through practice. However, life is like sand in our hands. The tighter we hold on, the faster it will disappear.
In the face of impermanence, the practice of strengthening life and self has little effect. If we can relax and pay more attention to practice instead of taking everything in life as vital, life will not get worse. On the contrary, real changes will take place at this time, and we will taste the taste of freedom because of relaxation.
Relaxation is the first lesson of practice.
Practical knowledge makes you relax, stop fighting, get used to that uncertainty and settle down here. Some people also make it very comfortable.
Seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages is probably the most ingrained habit of all sentient beings. There is nothing wrong with pursuing advantages and avoiding disadvantages. We want to get rid of the pain and seek liberation, which is the performance of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages. But the problem is that many people are addicted to pursuing advantages and avoiding disadvantages. As soon as they feel uncomfortable, they immediately seek another comfort and don't leave themselves a little time to understand and experience.
It is hot to turn on the air conditioner, but it is difficult to go out by car when heating is cold. In this desperate search for comfort, we not only miss the fun of experiencing the four seasons, but also become more and more fragile and vulnerable.
Indulge in seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages, some people call it "indulgence." We generally think that debauchery and drunkenness are sex, but on a more subtle level, everyone is willing to indulge in sex as long as conditions permit, because sex is a habitual way for people to escape anxiety.
When people feel lonely, bored or stressed, they will drink, overeat, shop, make phone calls, surf the Internet, or stay on the sofa and constantly change TV channels. Anyway, they just don't want to leave a little space for themselves to face that kind of loneliness, boredom or pressure.
Activities used to help us escape from anxiety will bring new troubles and problems. Our original intention is to save ourselves from pain and get comfortable, but what we actually do is to replace another kind of pain with one kind of pain, and so on, which further strengthens our fears.
In the past, people could write letters, read books or cultivate a hobby to cultivate their temperament. Now people are far from that kind of patience and soon get tired of everything except reincarnation. Life is like morning dew, but we still seem to think it doesn't pass fast enough. In modern society, many people are addicted to pursuing advantages and avoiding disadvantages. People can't tolerate even a little discomfort, dissatisfaction and inconvenience, so they keep looking for comfort and convenience and believe they can find it.
It is often heard that people blame the increase of troubles and inner emptiness on material abundance, but it is not entirely true. Material will have a certain impact on people's hearts, but the key is that people are at work. Most of the troubles are because there are more things in my heart after the improvement of material conditions.
In the past, you may only have a watch, but now you have a house, a car and a deposit that always holds your heart. Inner emptiness is also because there are more choices to avoid pain after material prosperity, and you can change the way of comfort more frequently, and as a result, you will feel dissatisfied and depressed more frequently.
The Buddha told us a long time ago that suffering is suffering.
Nothing in the world is eternal, so everything we have and experience will bring insecurity. I'm afraid this is a kind of pain that no one can escape.
It stands to reason that we should be familiar with pain, but on the contrary, we are only familiar with our own fears and frustrations in the face of pain, but we never dare to examine the pain itself carefully.
People have four attitudes towards pain: some people want the pain to end as soon as possible, and they will always be happy after it is over; Some people don't forget the joy in suffering, and have fun in suffering; Some people are no longer afraid of pain, but pain hinders his practice; Some people embrace pain and find their way to freedom in it.
The act of grasping implies inner fear. When a baby was born in this strange and unknown world, his fist was clenched tightly. We all clench our fists involuntarily when we are nervous and afraid. Because we are worried about losing all our lives, we have been grabbing and hoarding all our lives and are never satisfied.
The Buddha taught us to give and to eliminate the feeling of poverty by giving. Someone needs food, if we have food, give it to him; Some people need clothes, medicine, money, comfort and care. If we can do it, we will help.
From rushing to giving up, it seems to be a major choice, but in fact we have no choice. Like it or not, we are losing it all our lives. Youth, laughter, tears, success, failure, love, hate and even the whole world will leave us.
The key to giving is not how many problems it can solve for others, but that we can learn to let go of persistence. External behavior will affect the mentality over time, and people who are used to giving are more likely to let go.
Look at myself now, I am still alive, and I can still feel joy and beauty. Although I have lost my life for decades, I have given up many things that I think I can't give up. We suddenly realized that we had nothing to lose from the beginning.
We think we are experienced and know everything, but many times we only understand the world through concepts and associations. In the eyes of ordinary people, white is pure, roses are love, the beach is a holiday, and you can't get a taxi when it rains. The association caused by things is far more valued than the thing itself, but it takes not only courage but also hard work to look at things with fresh and open eyes and personally feel and recognize the inner world and the outer world. I don't know whether our self-righteousness encourages our laziness or vice versa. In short, our stubbornness and laziness now, we think this is a manifestation of loving and affirming life. ?
Usually, in the face of anything, our first reaction is to judge: "right", "wrong", "beneficial", "harmful", "agree" and "disagree", and then we begin to speak loudly according to our own judgment, clumsy and clumsy. This habit and inherent concept of being eager to judge makes it impossible for us to understand things clearly.
We think we know everything, but we can only see what we want to see and hear, not what we can see and hear.
Some people may think it is easier said than done to let go of this and that, but in fact, the feelings of injustice, helplessness, regret, guilt and hesitation are so strong and real that they are not unwilling to get rid of them, but can't get rid of them. If so, you don't have to put anything down in a hurry. When you stop being hard on yourself, give yourself a minute, close your eyes and imagine that your heart is slowly expanding. It is soft and elastic. Slowly, it embraced this scarred self into its tenderness, and it gradually expanded to the whole room, the courtyard outside, streets, pedestrians, bridges, cities, rivers and seas, peaks and the sky.
We refuse to communicate with others, usually because we think those people won't understand us. Our rejection of other people's things actually reflects our rejection of our own things. If you think others won't understand you, it means that you don't want to understand others at all. If you hate the poverty of others, you are afraid of poverty. If you reject others' shallowness, narrowness and indifference, it means that you don't want to face these things on yourself. Therefore, only by not excluding others can we accept ourselves.
In order to train this open ability, some practitioners deliberately want to get along with difficult people. Before coming to Tibet, the venerable person of Adi Gorge in India worried that Tibetans were too kind and gentle to find a suitable place to practice their hearts. He deliberately took a waiter with a bad temper and always found fault.
Although we take ourselves seriously, it is embarrassing that habits make us look like fools, and all our actions make us more confused and miserable. Start changing these habits now, centrifuge.
For example, the next time you encounter a traffic jam, see what your habitual reaction will be: nervous? Grumpy Keep looking at your watch nervously? Take out your mobile phone and complain to your friends? Criticize the car in front, the driver in front, the police on the road and the broken traffic lights? Or turn on the radio and record player to make yourself more upset? Only look at yourself, without judging or deliberately correcting. When you encounter a situation, don't be overwhelmed by emotions immediately, but look at your own reaction. This is change. Next time you encounter a traffic jam, see how you complain, look at your watch, make a phone call and keep tossing. Finally, one day you will feel ridiculous: complaining, looking at your watch, making phone calls, and tossing. Why is it the same every time? Can't you be creative? So, the next time you encounter the same situation, you will do something different: listen to what people on the radio are talking about, enjoy a song, feel the anxiety of the driver next to you, and think about what arrangements need to be adjusted because of the traffic jam ... In short, you are no longer competing with yourself.
Samsara is an inertia. Changing habits can slowly stop that huge inertia.
Traditionally, we interpret alienation as a heart that hates the suffering of reincarnation and pursues liberation and happiness. Pain comes from persistence, so what we should actually stay away from is persistence. And what is persistence? Anything can be persistence. This makes centrifugation a thing that has to be done with undivided attention and unremitting efforts, because any place, any time and anything is a trap.
On one occasion, a yogi went to visit Guru Jiang Yangqin Zhe Wang Bo. On the way, he gave away everything except a wooden bowl, which was his favorite thing. When I came to the guru, I couldn't help thinking, "Didn't people say that Xia Zha (who didn't) played the piano and played the philosopher Wang Bo?" How do you live in such a luxurious palace? " At this time, Wang Bo, a Qin Zhe in Jiangyang, pointed to him and said, "Thinkers, my attachment to this room full of gold, silver and jewels is far less than your attachment to that wooden bowl!" Then he grabbed his wooden bowl and smashed it.
This is the way to leave, not looking at the outside, but looking at the heart.