Tag: meditation

Emptiness

We have discussed the dream-like nature of the phenomenon as well as the lack of inherent existence of the phenomenon in the past. Over the next few weeks, I want to discuss a very deep and profound subject called emptiness. Before we talk about what emptiness is, we need to make sure what it is not.

Emptiness is one of the most misunderstood concepts in spirituality. Emptiness does not mean nothingness. It does not say nothing exists at all. It says all phenomena are empty from their own side. And that is the key distinction here. From their own side means separate and independent existence. The English language defines emptiness as the feeling of loneliness but that is not emptiness at all. In Sanskrit, emptiness is called Sunyata.

Emptiness is the true nature of all phenomena. It means there is something and that something is ready to take any form that is necessary. So there is a huge difference between emptiness and nothingness. Different people grasp the concept of emptiness in different ways. So I am going to try and get an explanation in two distinct ways.

First, let’s look at the physical way of looking at emptiness. Before we take a look at this, we need to look at how space is defined. There are two types of space; producing space and nonproducing space. For example, we see there is a brick wall. If we try to go through the brick wall, we will fall down as there is no way to go through the brick wall. The brick wall is called producing space. On the other hand, space, where you can easily move through, is known as nonproducing space. So let’s look at an example. If you look at an empty room, you will there is nothing but space. Now, if we put a chair in that room, obviously a chair is occupied in the room. The chair is called the producing space. There was space where there is a chair right now. Where did space go? That space that was there before the chair was present is known as nonproducing space. The space occupied by the chair is the emptiness of that chair. Another thing to keep in mind is that the chair and the space occupied by the chair are not separate phenomena; they are one and the same. They are non-dual. This is a very important point to note that the chair and the emptiness of the chair are one and the same.

Another way to look at this is that emptiness is a way of looking at the world as it is without adding or subtracting anything from it. What does that mean? Let’s say we see a series of events through our eyes or in our heads. That normally brings some kind of feeling in us. Once that feeling surfaces, we tend to identify with that feeling and get wrapped up with our “I” about that feeling. This is what causes all the suffering. The more we get involved in it, the more it sucks us in.

Instead, if we look at those events from an emptiness lense, and not react at all but just observe, you will notice that feeling is empty of anything to identify with. This is the true meaning of emptiness. We clearly see this, we will realize that labeling or identifying everything with our “I” is the cause of our stress, anxiety, and so forth. When we drop the “I”, we are free from all the drama. I know it is easier said than done but this is one key to true happiness.

So as you can see emptiness can be looked at from different points of view. However, all of these lead to one single goal. They are targeted to get people to focus on what is important as opposed to day-to-day thoughts of anger, attachment, jealousy, hatred, and so forth. If we look at the world from an emptiness point of view, our delusions will gradually decrease and eventually be eliminated. This will allow us to operate from a happy state of mind. A happy state of mind brings inner peace allowing us to be aware. An aware mind is a perceptive mind and as we discussed in the past function of the mind is to perceive. Imagine what we can achieve if our perception is crystal clear.

I know there is a lot to unpack here. I am hoping to continue this series for the next few weeks and have an extended Q&A session at the end similar to what we did after the Karma series.

Mindfulness

We have talked on and off about we need to be mindful and how mindfulness helps us maintain peace within our mind. So today, let’s explore mindfulness a little more in-depth. In the simplest terms, mindfulness is being aware of your mind from moment to moment. If you are aware of your mind, your thoughts will not control you.

Let’s think about this real quick. Did you have a problem today? Did it feel like it was a really big deal and potentially could have a huge impact on life? Now think back 30 days. Do you remember what the problem of the day was on this day last month? Chances are you don’t remember. But we are sure that at the time it felt like a really big deal. What does that mean? It means we are paying inappropriate attention to our uncontrolled thoughts.

My teacher Kadam Lucy points to this study that was done a few years. All the study subjects were asked how many of the thoughts they were in control of daily. What do you think the answer is? I have asked a few people myself and in most cases, they do not know. Well, this scientific study found that 9 out of 10 thoughts people have daily, they were not in control of their thoughts. 9 out of 10! There is also a study that we have on average 6,000 thoughts per day. That means we have 5,400 uncontrolled thoughts per day. No wonder most people are not feeling happy 90% of the time.  

According to Buddha, our uncontrolled mind is the main cause of our suffering. Uncontrolled thoughts usually arise from inappropriate attention. That brings delusions including anxiety, anger, attachment, jealousy, pride, and so on. These delusions keep our minds occupied all day long. The only way out is to get control of these delusions is to tame our minds. The famous Indian scholar Atisha once said that Since you cannot tame the minds of others until you have tamed your own, begin by taming your mind.

So mastering our mind is key to getting control of our thoughts and in essence, mastering our life. With meditation practice, we can begin to get control of our uncontrolled thoughts. There are many meditation techniques we can try. The simplest and most common meditation practice is breathing meditation. This is where we focus our attention on the sensation of our breath. One of the more effective meditation techniques we covered in the past known as MAC technic. M-A-C. Mindfulness is what resists temptations to follow our thoughts, when we lose our attention and start thinking of distracting thoughts, Alertness keeps an eye out for our mind wandering off and brings it back to the object of our meditation, and Concentration is when we focus on meditation so we don’t begin to start wandering around.

Concentration is our ability to control our mind, to direct it at will, to focus, and eventually stay there for as long as we want. It allows us to think the thoughts we want to think as opposed to the thoughts that just show up uncontrollably in our minds.

Concentration makes our minds strong, clear, and relaxed, and we become more productive. It always makes us feel better, far more peaceful. It even makes us more physically comfortable.

Buddha said that there is nothing more powerful in this universe than a fully concentrated mind. The reason our mind lacks power is that it is fractured. It is all over the place. We talk to ourselves, apparently, at a rate of a thousand words a minute.

I hear a lot about I am not able to concentrate or I am not able to meditate and thoughts keep coming. I want to assure you that you are making a progress. Every time you notice that your mind wanders off and you try to bring it back, you are getting better at meditation. No matter how many times you have to bring your mind back (initially, it feels like that’s all we are doing), you are making progress. I can assure you it gets easier with practice. If you develop a regular practice say 10 minutes per day, before you know it, you will be able to focus on peace within you.

Keeping Calm in Turbulent Times – Meditation for Traders

A day trader friend of mine invited me to talk about meditation in his trading room. Below is a talk I gave to these traders.

Most of you have read Trading In The Zone by Mark Douglas by now. Some of you often comment on how Mitch trades with ease whether he is up $200K or down $170K on a given day. Many people will freak out if they go through that kind of ups and downs every week. So what is the secret to keeping calm when we are trading? We know when we are calm, we tend not to make unforced errors. Kind of errors when we meant to buy puts but ended up buying calls. Or did not close out your entire position and let some options expire worthlessly! We have all made some versions of these errors in our trading routine. Today, I want to talk about training our minds to make sure that we begin to reduce these errors and eventually completely stop making unforced errors. More importantly, make sure that our trading activities do not cause any mental and physical harm.

A major cause of these errors is our mental state. It usually begins with anxiety. So let’s start with what causes anxiety. We live in a fast pace world. People have way too many balls in the air so stress, in general, is at an elevated level in our society. You bring the fast-paced world of trading in the mix and your stress goes through the roof. I mean you are putting thousands of dollars on the line and you are going in and out within minutes if not seconds sometimes. It is natural to cause stress. Our brain is designed to protect what it thinks is ours. So when it seems that a trade is going against us, its fight or flight response kicks in. You begin to panic sometimes and all of a sudden you get out of a trade before letting it play out based on your indicators. I heard last week someone say on daily wrap-up that they decided to stop using the 30-second chart. I think that was brilliant. Mitch keeps telling us that we trade a 2-minute chart and a 30-second chart is just used as an aid. For this person, seeing that trade was going against them in a 30-second chart even when all other indicators were telling them to stay in the trade, they got out and lost money. It was so smart of them to figure out what was causing the issue and stop looking at 30 seconds chart. Now, the stress of trade going against you is no longer there.

So how do we address the anxiety that flares up any time of the day with no warning? Anxiety comes because we provide inappropriate attention to a subject. What is inappropriate attention you might ask? It simply means we are exaggerating a problem we may be facing or blowing out of proportion the negative impacts of that problem and so forth. This happened recently. A friend’s son called me in panic. He had recently received a full-time job and his employer asked for a drug test. He went for the drug test and they took his social security number and date of birth. When he was leaving the facility, he noticed that they had a piece of paper with all his personal information in plain sight for everyone to see. He could not say anything but as soon as he went home he told his parents he was worried about his personal information being out there. They asked him to call me. Anyway, we started to talk and his anxiety was flaring up. So we went about breaking it down. And this is very important to get rid of anxiety. People who are going through anxiety episodes tend to talk about generality and how everything is going to be bad or worse. After talking it through, I asked him what the worst-case scenario? Another useful technic is when you know the worst-case scenario, it defines the problem and you can begin to address the problem. So he said the worst case is someone can steal his identity. So I asked him to put a freeze on his credit report with all three credit bureau.  As soon as he completed this step, his anxiety disappeared because now he knew his problem was solved. The point here is that if we break down the problem and begin to work on it, it reduces or eliminates anxiety.

This is what I call short term solution. Longer-term, we must learn how not to let our outer problems disturb our inner peace. This is where meditation comes in. If we have a meditation practice that allows us to find our peaceful selves, it can become our go-to solution.

Another way to address this is to realize that there is no inherent existence. Our anxiety about trading comes from our attachment to our money and our things. Once we realize there is no inherent existence, our attachment will drastically reduce even go away allowing us to just focus on the task at hand – trading.

Let’s look at an example. A friend of mine used to have anxiety issues. He would be in the car in a rush hour and would get upset about the traffic. We had an interesting discussion maybe 10 years ago. I asked him if he would consider just ignoring the traffic around him and focus on music or something during his drive. He said, well, that’s not me. That is not personality. I said maybe you should consider changing. He took a big offense he said that is my identity how can I change who I am. I let the subject go. Fast forward 10 years and he has calmed down considerably. Things don’t bother him as much in traffic. He adopted. What he thought was his identity changed. 10 years ago, he thought that was inherent existence. Today it is clear that it was not since he has changed.

Let’s look at another example. Have you ever been absorbed in a movie? I know I certainly have. If it is a well-made gripping movie and you are fully captivated by the plot; you can feel everything being real. You even get a physical reaction if there is an unexpected gunshot or something as if it just happened in front of our eyes. Even though we know we are watching a movie, at that moment we think it is inherently existent. We feel everything that is happening is real. We know it is just fiction.

Let’s say someone loses their months’ worth of income. Now by all means, if there is a possibility of getting it back do it. If not, the first thing you do is to learn not to make that mistake again. Beyond that though if you let it bother you, it will start affecting your health and your relationships. So it certainly does not make sense to let that keep bothering you.

Cultivating Compassion

During our Q&A session last week, we discussed how difficult it is to cultivate compassion toward others. As I mentioned, it is a learned skill. So today, let’s talk about how we can develop compassion toward all living beings.

Before we develop compassion towards everyone, we first need to have love towards them. If we have a love for someone in our heart, developing compassion towards them becomes easy. So how do we develop love towards other random people and even people who do not care for us. Well, let’s start with types of love. There are three types of love. Affectionate love, cherishing love, and wishing love.

Here is from the book Universal Compassion: We can understand these by considering the following example. If a mother is reunited with one of her children after a long separation, she is very happy and feels great affection for her. This special feeling of affection is affectionate love. Out of affection, the mother considers her child to be very precious and wants to take special care of her. This special feeling of caring is cherishing love. Because she has affectionate love and cherishing love for her child, if she sees that she is unhappy she immediately wishes to restore her happiness. This wish for others to be happy and to help them to achieve happiness is wishing love.

So let’s break this down. In simplest terms, affectionate love is to like someone. If we are in a family and we have affection towards each other, life would be much smoother. Similarly, if we have affection towards our community, we will try to make sure that everyone in our community is free from suffering. This affectionate love brings harmony and peace in the community. The easiest way to develop affectionate love is to think about how no one wants to suffer. We know that we don’t want to have any suffering in life. Similarly, no one wishes to suffer for themselves. Once we understand that all beings want to be free from suffering, we will develop affectionate love towards them. A warm feeling in our hearts towards them. It is difficult to practice this by trying to show affectionate love towards everyone at once. So one should start by showing affectionate love towards a select few that would be easier – members of your family or close friends. Then expand the circle once you are comfortable.

Cherishing love is to cherish other beings. We touched on this in one of our previous sessions. How so many people are trying to help our day go by smoothly. If we think about how many people were involved in the house we are living in or bringing the water we drink every day or food we eat every day. It is countless number of people. Just imagine how many people are involved in getting this meditation session live to all of us. Someone had to build this microphone, computer, and so on. Once we realize this, we will start cherishing others for all they do. Developing this cherishing love is what helps us develop compassion towards others.

Wishing love is our wish for all living beings to be happy. This is a natural outcome once we develop affectionate love and cherishing love towards others.

A fast-track way to develop compassion towards others is to think about all living beings as our mothers. If we believe that we have had countless lives, then we also must accept that we have had countless mothers. That means any of the living beings could be our mother in our previous lives. One can argue but that does not mean they are our mothers right now. Well, when someone’s mother passes away, she does not stop being their mother. So by that logic, since they were our mothers once, they are still our mothers. If we can begin to bring this point to our hearts, we will naturally develop compassion towards them. If for some reason you are not comfortable thinking about all living beings as your mother, you can think of being a mother to all living beings. The result is the same as you would begin to develop compassion towards them since all mothers have great compassion towards their children.

So as you can see there are a couple of ways we can train our minds to develop compassion. This is a very profound practice. It is certainly not easy but it is a fast-track way to get towards enlightenment. I hope all of us can begin to practice this in small ways in our daily life.

Equalizing Self with Others

Let’s talk about an extension of a topic we have covered earlier. We talked about how one can equalize self with other meaning how we should consider that the happiness of others is as important as our happiness. Today, let’s go one step further. That is called exchanging self with others. To look at this I am going to give you an example of a mountain.

Let’s imagine we are on a mountain top. We can see another mountain top from our vantage point. For us, the mountain top we are standing on is this mountain and the other mountain top is that mountain. Now let’s say we get off the mountain top and climb to the other mountain top that we were seeing. At this time, the mountain top we are on is this mountain, and the original mountain top that we were on previously becomes that mountain top. Everyone with me? So the words “this mountain top” and “that mountain top” are just imputations based on our vantage points at the time. It is not attached to a specific mountain top.

Our attachment to ourselves and our happiness is very similar. We all are on this mountain top where our happiness is more important than everyone else. We see everyone else as that mountain. Meaning their happiness is less important than our happiness. If we think about it, that is how most of us are living our lives. All of our problems come from this basic belief that our happiness is more important than everyone else. Think about it. We get upset when something does not go our way. When someone charges us more than what we think we should be paying. Or when someone says something that offends our ego. Or when someone does something different from what we think is right. All of these scenarios bring up delusions in our minds. Anger, hatred, jealousy, frustration, and so on. All of our delusions have their root in this belief that somehow our happiness is more important than others.

Now, if we get down this “me mountain” and start climbing the “they mountain”; we would cherish their happiness more than our happiness.  Think about this, if we value their happiness more than our happiness, delusions will not arise in our minds. A classic example is a mother’s love for her children. A mother would save her baby over her life. Obviously, she cherishes the happiness of the baby more than herself. So when an infant is hungry in the middle of the night, she is happy to get up and feed the baby. The same mom would get upset when someone else wakes her up in the middle of the night. What does that tell us? It is clear that in both cases the inconvenience is the same. She is up from her sleep. In one case she is happy to do it and in another case her delusions flare-up. In the scenario of feeding the baby, our mom is on “they mountain” – the baby’s happiness is more important than my happiness. In the other scenario, she is on the “me mountain”.

So as you can see, if we try to get off the “me mountain” and get on the “they mountain” a lot of delusions go away. Not only that, there is no friction in our life. Life just becomes smooth. The more formal name for this exchanging self with others.

Another way to look at this is to accept defeat and give them victory. A friend of mine recently said something that caught my eyes. She lives in a small town with her family. On the main street, she was going to a neighborhood shop. After she entered the shop, someone came behind her and was visibly upset. He said thanks a lot for cutting me off back there. She did not realize that she cut this person off. So she apologized to him and said she was sorry that she cut him off. He continued, you should be sorry for driving like a maniac. At this point, most people would have lost their patience and got into an argument. Not my friend. She said I am truly sorry that I did that to you. I could see you are upset and please tell me what I can do to improve your day. At that point, the person calmed down. My friend to her credit did not let the person upset her mental equilibrium. She also turned around the mood of the other person. Accepting defeat and giving them victory. I know it is very difficult if not impossible to practice but please try to do this next time you find yourself in a tough situation. It will brighten everyone’s day.