Buddhist Hour
Script No. 419
Broadcast live on Hillside 88.0 FM
11.00 am till 12 midday.
On
Sunday 12 February 2006 CE 2549 Buddhist Era

This script is entitled:
"Lifetimes of Learning "
Class 2

We now continue with our series "Lifetimes of Learning - A Do It Yourself Approach to Happiness" with Class No. 2 presented on the 7th of February 2006 at the Dandenong Ranges Community Cultural Centre, Upwey.

This week and last week we are introducing you to the components of this course titled ‘Lifetimes of Learning - A Do-It-Yourself Approach to Happiness’. We intend to present clear and simple instructions on how to transform your everyday life into a way of developing happiness based on Buddhist teachings.

How is the Buddhist Do It Yourself Approach to Happiness different from our version? Many of you may know about the history of Buddhism. The Buddhist Path comes from the life the Buddha led and his quest to find the way out of suffering. As you may know, the goal or end result of practicing Buddhism is not expressed using the word ‘happiness’ because, in Buddhism, happiness is not the final goal. Through correct Buddhist practice you definitely develop happiness, and you can become even happier than what we conventionally mean when we use the word ‘happiness’, but happiness is only a by-product of Buddhist practice, something you get on the way to the real goal of Buddhism. You go past happiness to something else, from a Buddhist point of view, something better.

Of course you can practice Buddhism and achieve happiness for yourself and just stop there; happy to be happy, if you like. There is nothing wrong about that. Most people want to experience a happy life, and we will teach how to become happier in this course, but as we hear about Buddha's teachings and begin to learn how to practice Buddhism, we may start to appreciate what the Buddha knew. What the Buddha found out, and then taught to others for about 40 years, which is the real goal of Buddhist practice. It is called Nibbana in the Pali language or Nirvana in Sanskrit. Nibbana is sometimes translated as perfect peace. In English it is translated as Enlightenment.

Buddhism allows us to recognise that it is up to us to look after our own wellbeing and happiness. There is no one else who can do it for us, just like no one else can eat our breakfast for us. We are responsible for ourselves because we inherit and experience the result of our choices and the causes we make.

Therefore the Buddhist Eightfold Path is a Do-It-Yourself path, and that is the wonderful thing. There is nothing outside us to stop us, there are no mysteries which prevent us from achieving our wish to be happy. We are not dependent on another person's favour or agreement for us to improve our generosity, loving kindness and wisdom and to apply the Buddha's teachings in our life. We already have everything we need to start.

In this course we will explain how to practice Buddhism and how this practice can lead to our wellbeing and happiness. The idea is we get to the understanding of Buddhism by doing it in our everyday lives.

You may wonder how your everyday life can be transformed into a path to happiness?

That is really what Buddhism is all about for laypersons. To turn what you do in your job, your family life, friendships and in your leisure time into a process which creates causes for you to become well and happy.

A very simple example of this is the practice of awareness of the present. The practice of awareness of the present is a foundation for the development of happiness.

In our everyday life we are usually not really paying much attention to how we live, we just get up and start getting on with what needs to be done, or what we want to do. Our attention is on doing, we are busy doing things, organising things, thinking about things. Often we are doing one thing whilst thinking about something else. Our mind is not really there, attentive to the thing we are doing.

For example, when we are driving to some place our mind may be thinking of what we are going to do when we arrive, or after we have left. We may relive in our mind something that happened last night or last week, something someone said or is going to say. We are living these phantom experiences in our mind rather than the real experiences of what we are actually doing.

"We spend most of our lives in states of never really being anywhere. We move through the world like phantoms; dream figures interacting with other dream figures who themselves are planning their journeys. How rare is it to be real! How rare is it to be here." (Hearn)

You can see the scope for us to really enjoy or appreciate the experience of living is quite limited when our mind is like this. Our mind simply cannot experience much satisfaction, enjoyment, joy, or peace when it is bound up in this dream like state of living. Yet satisfaction, enjoyment and joy are some of the building blocks of happiness. Therefore in order for us to become happier and for our happiness to last for longer periods of our day, our way of being, as we live each moment, needs to change.

This is to do with not living just to get things done. It is to do with the quality of our mind as we live. We need to start paying attention to what is actually happening in the present and what our mind is doing. We start to give up living by our old habits of how to live which limit our present happiness and has caused much of our past unhappiness. We start to re-learn how to live.

"If you pour a cup of tea, you are aware of extending your arm and touching your hand to the teapot, lifting it and pouring the water. Finally the water touches your teacup and fills it, and you stop pouring it and put the teapot down precisely, as in the Japanese Tea Ceremony. You become aware that each precise movement has dignity. We have long forgotten that activities can be simple and precise. Every act of our lives can contain simplicity and precision and can thus have tremendous beauty and dignity." (Trungpa)

"…that to be present, to be awake and alert and beautifully responsive to what is going on inside us and around us, is the key to resting easefully in the unending movements of being alive. Pausing or stopping is not really an option. If we wish to find peace, it will have to be in the midst of all this whirling movement." (Hearn)

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines happiness as: "the state of pleasurable content of mind, which results from success or the attainment of what is considered good." In other words, it is an event driven by good things happening to us.

In Buddhism it is the state of being happy or content that can be developed. It can be experienced more and more frequently depending on the quality of our practice and the causes we make. As we make the right causes and conditions our life gradually becomes happier. As we understand better and better what the real causes for happiness are we can incorporate those causes in our everyday life and the increases to our experience of wellbeing come as the result. Our normal state becomes happier, whether we have success or whether good things happen or not.

Awareness of the present or as it is called in Buddhism ‘mindfulness’ is one Buddhist practice for our everyday life which can have a fundamental impact on our experience of living. There are many others that we will talk about during this course. The practice of morality is another foundation of happiness, the giving up of negative minds and attitudes is another and the cultivation of good minds and good actions are others.

As we mentioned in our course brochure, the basis of all such Buddhist practices lies within the Ten Perfections, or paramis in the Pali language, which are like ‘training packages’. The training of each Perfection targets a specific aspect of our physical, verbal and mental behaviour and shines it up, and over time eventually turns us into an ultimately compassionate and ultimately wise being, a Buddha.

During the course we will explain each of the Ten Perfections with the main focus being to show you how to practice these ‘perfecters’; what we can do in our everyday lives, whether at work, with our families, friends, or by ourselves, to practice these Ten Perfections.

Parami: What does it mean?

The Pali word the Buddha used to describe the methods he taught was parami, which has been translated as ‘perfection’ or ‘transcendental virtue’. When literally translated it means ‘crossed over’ or ‘gone over to the other shore’. It is as though the parami's, the Perfections, are rafts which take us across the ocean of life to the shore of enlightenment. In our first session we talked about the first four Perfections, those of the Perfection of Generosity, the Perfection of Morality, the Perfection of Renunciation, and the Perfection of Wisdom. This evening we'll continue on with the remaining six Perfections, giving you a brief overview of each one.

The fifth training package, or Perfection, is the Perfection of Energy, or viriya-parami in Pali. Even in daily life effort needs to be made to achieve our goals. For example, we have to get up for work, and sometimes this can be a big effort!

Buddhist writer Anthony Flannagan writes:

"...in what ways should this (energy) be directed? The answer is simple - in all ways that are conducive to spiritual progress: in what we do, in what we say, and in what we think! To do what is right, to avoid evil, to purify the mind, this is the teaching of the Buddha, and to apply this perfectly requires unceasing energy. (Flannagan)

The Perfection of energy practice is not only to do with what we use our energy for, but to have wisdom with regard to our use of energy. We will learn during the course what good actions we can do everyday that will create more energy or life force for us to use. We will identify how we currently waste large amounts of our mental energy and what we can do to reduce that.

To train ourselves in the Perfection of Energy we will learn about:

The Way of The Kitchen - We find out how to practice all the Perfections as you prepare, cook and offer food. We will see how to use the kitchen as a wonderful method of making powerful causes for our health, strength, energy and long life, and wisdom.

Whole Life Planning - We find out how writing a whole life plan helps us improve our quality of life as well as harmonising the major components of our life towards achieving our main wish for our wellbeing and happiness this life.

Long-Life Practice (how to really enjoy your good kamma) - We find out how to rejuvenate ourselves through harmless fun and high-grade pleasure and through specific long life practices such as the Chan practice of the Way of the Garden.

Buddhist practice also eliminates the opposites to the energy perfection such as laziness and procrastination through applying the correct antidotes and appreciating our great good fortune and the rare opportunities that we already have.The Perfection of Patience

The sixth training package, or Perfection, is the Perfection of Patience, or khanti-parami in Pali.

We have all heard the saying ‘Patience is a virtue’, but how many of us are mindful of this on a daily basis? We are able to maintain composure under minor or even moderate abuse or hardship, but when people start yelling at us, it's only natural that we yell back. It's really easy for us to lose our cool if things go wrong enough.

The Perfection of Patience is the art of staying cool and not getting impatient or angry, even in thought, under any circumstance whatever. It's called the Perfection of Patience because, once we've developed it to it's highest level, there's no chance that we can ever get angry again.

The Buddha taught that patience is extremely important because anger has the extraordinary capacity to destroy the good things we've done in the past. In a moment of anger even the greatest of friendships can be forsaken, and we can lose all that we have worked so hard to gain. Anger is particularly dangerous in this way. Patience cuts off the door to so much suffering for ourselves and others.

In our life there is certainly an abundance of opportunities for training ourselves in the Perfection of Patience. Once we understand the importance of patience we first identify in which areas we are vulnerable and then, with strong intention to cut off our negative responses, we make a determined effort in restraint.

During the course we will help you in this practice by contemplating the faults of anger and the benefits of patience, by disregarding harm done to you and by being certain about the teachings on cause and effect. We will consider the example of the Buddha's practice of patience even in the face of losing his own life from the stories of the former lives of the Buddha.The Perfection of Truthfulness

The seventh training package, or Perfection, is the Perfection of Truthfulness, or sacca-parami in Pali.

The Buddhist Path, which is the path to overcome all forms of suffering completely, works because it is based on truth. It is based on how the world actually is, how our minds operate in reality.

The wisdom of knowing exactly how our mind works and the true nature of reality is very rare and difficult to find. It took a Buddha to do it. Without his mind being able to see the truth about all things clearly there would be no path known to us of how to overcome suffering completely.

Therefore the function of truth in Buddhism is paramount. For us to become entirely free from suffering we need to see truth each one for himself or herself as the Buddha did.

The act of lying is an act of distorting the truth or distorting the reality in a way that suits the person lying. The act of distorting the truth creates kamma for the person lying so that in the future they will find it more difficult to recognise the truth in their own minds.

Either people lie to them, or they get poor information about things they wish to know, or if they are told the correct information they will tend to not believe it, discount it or mistake what they heard. Even in a worldly sense it is important to find out the truth about things.

For a Buddhist who is trying to understand the truth and is intending to create good causes for learning and clearly comprehending, it cannot be done without keeping the precept ‘to refrain from lying’.

The Perfection of Truthfulness is being truthful in our speech at all times, to never bend the truth even slightly. It is to know that respecting truth and being truthful with our body, speech and mind creates the causes to understand the way things are in reality.

In this course we will learn to use mindfulness to monitor our speech and writing, to maintain truthfulness. We will also examine what causes we can make to be able to know the truth about things and learn methods of examining situations we experience in our lives without our own personality biases, to see what is really happening.The Perfection of Determination

The eighth training package, or Perfection, is the Perfection of Determination, or adhitthana-parami in Pali.

It’s not difficult to recognise why determination is an indispensable aspect of working towards a goal that may be difficult to achieve. Scaling a mountain is a tough thing to do. It's physically strenuous and requires great determination on behalf of the hiker. If, however, halfway up the hiker thought, "Oh, this is too hard. I will just give up now and go home," then chances are he would just go home, and the mountain would remain unclimbed. There may not have even been an impassable barrier to him achieving his goal.

Enlightenment, like the mountain, is difficult to scale. To reach the summit requires us to transform ourselves in a way that we have never done before. Thinking thus, we engage in the methods for developing the Perfection of Determination.

In our course we will find out how relying on such methods as motivation, enthusiasm or reacting to our likes and dislikes are much too weak and unreliable. What happens when our motivation falls away, for example? They are useful up to a point but eventually they give out. We will examine how to develop deep determination and robust methods, which do not exhibit such flaws and weaknesses. The Perfection of Loving-Kindness

The ninth training package, or Perfection, is the Perfection of Loving-Kindness, or metta-parami in Pali.

The major obstacles to us having a happy mind most of the time are negative states or negative aspects of our mind. Just like a few drops of ink turns a glass of clear water into a murky dull colour these negatives similarly affect our minds. One of the three main negative stains in our mind is hatred or aversion.

In order to increase our wellbeing and happiness we need to do learn how to reduce and then remove these negative aspects. The development of loving-kindness or metta in Pali removes hate, it is a natural antidote of hate.

There is a real difference, though, between normal love and the Perfection of Loving-Kindness. Giving our friend something nice because we like them is usually not an act of Perfect Loving-Kindness, there is more to it than that. Perfect Loving-Kindness is impartial and extends to even those people who do us harm. Loving-kindness is a state of mind where love is present towards all beings independent of who they are or whether they are friendly to you.

You wake up in the morning and the instant you wake loving kindness is there; flowing to yourself and others from your heart chakra. It eventually becomes unshakeable in your mind once the remaining traces of hate are gradually removed. Under the effect of loving-kindness you are favourably inclined to developing friendship, kindness and empathy to others and you automatically have mental ease, lightness of mind and peace.

During the course we will help you develop loving kindness through such practices as metta (loving-kindness) meditation, through recollection that we depend on the kindness of others for our existence and survival in the world, and through cultivating friendship and harmony with others.The Perfection of Equanimity

The tenth training package, or Perfection, is the Perfection of Equanimity, or uphekkha-parami in Pali.

The definition of equanimity given in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is: "evenness of mind or temper. The quality of being undisturbed by good or ill fortune."

A useful simile to describe the function of equanimity is to imagine we can be like the surface of an ocean - rising and falling with every new wave, tossed by the winds as they whip along the water and burnt by the sun; or we can be like the whole ocean, aware but unmoved by the comings and goings of life on the surface.

Equanimity allows peace of mind within the midst of the ever-changing conditions of our lives.

The normal condition of human life is that, along with each desirable worldly condition such as gain, fame, praise, and happiness comes it's counterpoint; loss, defame, blame and pain. In life there are these eight worldly conditions, and, depending on the kamma we have made, we will experience a mixture of them.

Venerable Narada Thera says:

"Like the pendulum that perpetually turns to the right and left, four desirable and undesirable conditions prevail in this world which everyone, without exception, must perforce in the course of one's lifetime." (Narada)

Our attachment to the four desirable worldly conditions, and our aversion to the four undesirable conditions, makes us unstable in our mind, rather than living in peace we are being swayed and jolted by the dynamic conditions of the world.

If happiness is dependent on these conditions when we're so deeply attached to them, it follows that, if we could be free of this attachment, our heart would become quite immoveable, unfazed by the appearance of the desirable and undesirable.

This is called the Perfection of Equanimity, and it is quite distinct from unintelligent indifference, the attitude of ‘not caring’. It is, in fact, very much the opposite. The Perfection of Equanimity has, as its base, the Perfection of Wisdom, or in other words, understanding that the conditions that we experience now are a result of our actions in the past. Knowing this, we also understand that, for example, when we react to anger with anger, we ensure seeing people yell at us again in the future. When we live with Perfect Equanimity, understanding this, we remain undisturbed and can continue our cultivation of the other Perfections regardless.

There is a teaching given by our Teacher John D. Hughes some years ago which you may like to try this week as a first step in the practice of equanimity and becoming happier. You adopt the position of the following statement: "My life is going extremely well."

You say this to yourself many times a day. "My life is going extremely well."

Usually our minds pick up every little thing that is not going perfectly for us. We seem to let our attention focus on disagreeable things. We tend to complain about this thing, and whinge a bit about that. There may be 100 things going fine, but still our mind gets caught up in the little things which maybe only last five minutes. For example, someone cuts us off when we are driving, we burnt the toast, it's raining when we want it to be sunny, it's sunny when we wanted rain, or someone says something unkind to us. We need to get used to being happy when things are just going along normally, imperfectly. Normally the world is imperfect; that is ‘normal’ if you like.

We don't need some special event or great thing to happen to us before we think we can be happy. Some people in the world haven't got enough food to eat today, some are in war zones, some are in hospital with life threatening illnesses. Why should we be worried about the guy that cuts us off in traffic. "My life is going extremely well."

Even when things do go ‘wrong’, our minds often tend to exaggerate the problem making it seem much bigger than it really is. Get things back in proportion by saying "My life is going extremely well." OK, something went wrong - life's like that, it's always going to be like that. Cut off the worrying mind, the frustrated mind, the annoyed mind - all of them are unpleasant to experience anyway. Just say, "My life is going extremely well."

Finally there is another meaning. From a Buddhist point of view we are in a wonderful life. Above all, we have a life where we can learn how to overcome suffering forever, which is the purpose of Buddhist teachings. We have a healthy human body, which is the best birth of all to practice Buddhism, we have sufficient leisure time and the teachings we need are in our world, available to us now. There is a clear path of practice and there is nothing to stop us from achieving the goal if we are determined enough to do it. So the real view is:

"My life is going extremely well."

This can be your homework for the coming week! Make your ‘normal’ life happier.

May you be well and happy.

May all beings be well and happy.

This script was prepared and edited by Anita Carter, Frank Carter, David Ley, and Alec Sloman.

1. Hearn, Tarchin. 2003. Walking in Wisdom. Published by Wangapeka Books, c/o Wangapeka Educational Trust RD 2 Wakefield, Nelson, New Zealand.

2. Trungpa, Chogyam. 1973. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. Clear Light Series. Published by Shambhala Publications, Inc. 1123 Spruce Street, Boulder, Colorado 80302.

3. Little, W., Fowler, H.W., Coulson, J. 1973. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Published by the Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, Oxford, New York, Toronto.

4. Flanagan, Anthony. Vigor. http://buddhism.about.com/library/weekly/aa102502a.htm

5. Venerable Narada Thera. 1998. The Buddha and His Teachings. Published by the Buddhist Missionary Society, 123, Jalan Behala, 50470 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Word count: 4,400

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