Tag: peace

Ignorance

Today we are going to look at ignorance. But wait, I am a wise person you might say! I am not ignorant. Well, let’s take a look at that really quickly.

If you think about it, all of us are afraid of something or other. Most of our fear is a direct result of ignorance. We are afraid of things or people that we don’t understand. Just because it is not in our experience we tend to stay away from it. Instead of learning about the subject and trying to get over our ignorance, we tend to fight, flight or freeze. This was a good option back in the days when we were still hunter-gatherers and needed to save our lives from the elements. But those days are over and we still have not adopted ourselves! Not your fault for sure—we can blame our genes for that. We are all afraid of terrorism, why? Because we don’t know what type of violent attack will come, where, or when. That unknown is what strikes fear. I guess, if we knew something was coming, we would prepare for that.

When I say we are all ignorant, I am not talking about your intellect. One can be intellectual and ignorant at the same time. How is that possible you might ask? Well, look at someone who is specializing in a particular field. They are formidable experts in that field and know all the nuances and intricacies. But outside of that field, they may not have basic knowledge of day-to-day life. So one could say they are intellectual and ignorant at the same time. Another way to look at this is to know that to be intellectual and to be wise are two totally different things. I know so many so-called experts whose judgment may be questionable. Hopefully, this makes some sense.

Here, I am talking about how we all lack the knowledge about the ultimate truth as to how phenomena exist. We talked about this at length in our emptiness teachings as to how all phenomena are like a dream and they are dependent existence. Some of us may have developed a theoretical acceptance of that concept but it is not certainly in our experience or in our practice.  

All phenomena have dependent existence. This means that everything that we see and experience does not have an independent inherent existence. All of that plays out in our minds as we have discussed in the past. So why is it that we are grasping so tightly? That is where our ignorance comes into play. We grasp this phenomenon like they are rock solid. But if we look back in our own lives, we realize that things are constantly changing. Think about a 12-year-old version of yourself. I am sure you were in love with that person. You held that person so tightly. You could do no wrong and you probably had an inflated opinion of yourself. Now looking back, I am sure you realize that 12-year-old self is no longer there. Who you are today is much more different from that 12-year-old person. Your thoughts have changed, your taste in life has changed, your dreams and aspirations are different, and so on. So can you see your 12-year-old self was inherently existent? If it was, it would not have changed. But it is our ignorance that was grasping that 12-year-old self. If that is the case, why are you grasping your current self? If you can intellectually realize that your 12-year-old self was not inherently existent, what makes you think your current self is? I know, it is tough to take it in but if we are intellectually honest with ourselves, we would not grasp ourselves so strongly.

If we stop grasping ourselves so strongly, we will not take ourselves so seriously and that would open up so much harmony in this world. So how do we develop that wisdom if you will? Well, let’s start by being mindful. In our daily activities let’s be mindful that things are not the way they appear. Just acknowledge that without doing anything else. If we start developing this mindfulness, our attitude towards events and phenomena will change for the better.

Greed

Let’s talk about something that all of us are guilty of at some point or another. Greed. It is easy to sneak in and hard to get rid of. Remember Gordon Gekko from the famous movie Wall Street? He glorified Greed. I remember the dialog which goes Greed is Good.

Greed has sipped into our society so much that no one thinks it is bad anymore. We put greedy people on a pedestal and give them the highest of regards. Our best and brightest want to work for wall street and law firms as opposed to go invent the next best thing or cure cancer or help humanity.

We live in a society where everyone is fleshing their possessions on social media like it is some type of competition. When did living become an Olympic sport? We all are chasing this elusive dream that if only we had a little more we would be just fine. Growing up I heard this story that I am sure you all may have heard it. There is this guy who goes to the King. He says, I am measurable and I would like to live comfortably. King was generous so he said fine, I will give you a piece of land. The guy said how big? The King goes, as much as you can take. You start when the sun rises at a specific point. You start walking. The only condition is that you must come back to the same point before the sunsets. All the land you cover during that time is yours forever. The guy was really excited. He was all ready to go come sunrise. He started walking. He was covering good ground. By the lunchtime came about, he thought of stopping for lunch but told himself he could skip lunch one day. The more time he spent walking, the more land he would get. So he keeps walking. By around 2 pm he was really tired. He slowed down. But he did want to stop. He thought he should start walking towards the original point but decided to continue instead to make sure he could cover more ground. He keeps walking and all of a sudden it is 4 pm. Now it is really getting late. So he began to walk back towards the original point. He realized he may not make it back so he started to run. He kept running it was a few minutes before sunset. He could see the origin point. It was all within his grasp. He was going to be rich with all this land in his name. But he was tired. He could not even walk let alone run. He was dragging himself. Out of energy. As the sun was going down, he fell down and stretched his hand. He was maybe a foot short and the sunset. He could not make it. He died on the spot. All he needed was six feet of land for his burial. Greed made him lose his life.

Why do we become greedy? Greed comes from our burning desire for something. We get greedy because we think those things will provide us long-lasting happiness. But the goalpost keeps moving. What you think would give you long-lasting happiness keeps changing with every passing moment. Once we achieve what we set out to achieve, we may get temporary satisfaction but not lasting happiness. Our goals will change again and we will start chasing again. Greedy people are never content with what they have. Greed also shows up as a lack of generosity and compassion towards others.

Let me give you an example. I am sure you have heard this animal rescue advertisement on TV with Sarah Mclaughlin’s song in the background. I was in a seminar with the guy who started that foundation. He has since passed. He told me he was so smart that he started this non-profit foundation and he had his own business that had a contract with the non-profit to provide T-Shirts and other things to non-profit at an inflated price. He thought he was a genius taking money from people in the name of charity and benefiting himself.  When that becomes a badge of honor, something is wrong with our society.

Let me give you another example. Someone called me up recently about some advice. I asked him what he was trying to achieve. He said his goal was to make $8,000 per day. So I asked him a few questions and realized that he was making a decent living. So I told him, why he was putting so much pressure on himself when he was making a decent living and most people would love to be in his situation. I said why not enjoy the remaining time he had with his family rather than chasing this elusive $8,000 per day goal. He said my wife and parents are saying the same thing. I was like, maybe you should listen to her! Anyway, towards the end, I suggested that he should not chase this and just be happy with what he had. So he said, Nirav, I can teach you how to make $8,000 per day! See, he did not listen to a word I was saying. Here I was trying to get him off this drug called greed and he was trying to get me hooked!

It is very difficult to get rid of greed. But fortunately, there is hope. The antidote to Greed is Generosity. More generous we are – with our possessions, our time, etc.; less greedy we will be. We have talked about generosity in the past. I strongly suggest you go back and read the generosity blog or the generosity video on our YouTube channel.

Dealing w Teenagers

Last week we received a request to talk about how best to deal with teenagers. So let’s try to tackle this age-old problem for every parent in today’s session.

Someone sent me a perfect WhatsApp message I want to say five or so years ago. It went something like, don’t live your dreams through your kid’s lives. What a perfect sentence. We all are guilty of living our dreams through our kid’s lives sometime or another. The Sooner we realize it is not healthy for either the kid or the parent, the better off we are. This is one of the biggest obstacles when dealing with teenagers. It is an age when kids are just forming their own dreams and aspirations and want to be independent. This is also an age when a parent thinks the kid is at an age where they can mold their dreams onto kids’ life! So the first thing we must recognize is that it is their life. We are here to support them in any way that we can but we must not interfere with their lives.

When we talk about teenagers in the western world, we should also realize the amount of pressure these kids are experiencing. This is the age when bullying usually starts at school. They also are trying to fit into different social dynamics of the end of middle school and beginning of high school. This is a rough time for kids. Let me give you an example. When my son went to high school, the very first week, one of his friends (this was a small skinny dude), was hung in a locker by some older bully and he was stuck in that locker for a few minutes. Imagine the trauma that the kid went through. Not only him but his friends and everyone else who found out. For example, my son started talking roughly after that incident. I told him he did not need to talk that way and he said yeah I do otherwise I would get in the same situation as the other guy! So you can imagine the pressure these kids feel just to stand up for themselves.

On top of all that, the kids have other pressures such as academic pressure, social pressure, pressure to participate in extra-curricular activities, and pressure to perform in athletic events! Growing up, we never had pressure to perform or no one had to tell us to join extracurricular activities or sports. We just did. Today, the kids are talking about college preparation at an early age. Elite colleges have made the lives of a teenager miserable. They are expected to participate in all kinds of activities and excel at them along with their academics. Let’s draw a comparison. You all have high-flying jobs. Let’s say your company expected you to spend 10 hours a week on nonprofit activities and not only that, excel at those activities, improve the impact of those organizations. In addition, they expected you to participate in competition-level athletics that required 10 hours a week of your time to prepare. I am sure you would be exhausted and quit by the end of the week!

So as you can see, the life of a teenager is very difficult in today’s world. So the question is not how to deal with the teenager, the real question is how to help your teenager. The first thing, I would recommend is that show them you understand the problems they are going through. Appreciate the efforts that they are putting into different activities. Once they realize you get the kind of effort they are putting in, they will respond accordingly.

The next thing is to be there for them. As I pointed out, they have so many pressures that sometimes, all they are looking for is an ear. I don’t think they want your advice but they do want someone who listens. Just listen without giving advice (chances are they would not like your advice at this age).

Now you say but what about when they are making wrong decisions. For example, what if they are not doing well in their classes and you know they can do a lot better (say they are getting Cs when you know they are A+ students). The only thing you can do in such situations is to explain to them the importance of the right actions. Why they should be putting effort into their education and so on. Show them the consequences they may face down the road (not consequences from you in terms of punishment but real-life consequences of unable to get into their dream schools etc.). After that, just let it be. The Sooner you realize it is their life better off you will be for your peace of mind. I have this mantra I have been using for the past five years or so, your life your decisions. We all have to face the consequences of our decisions. You cannot change that. Just accept it for what it is.

One last thing I would mention is that our kids come with their own set of Karma. If we accept that fact, we would not try to interfere in their lives as much as we do. We would instead, foster a loving environment and just let the things be.

Discernment

Today we will wrap up our discussion on the six perfections. The last perfection we are looking at is discernment also known as judgment. It is our ability to discern what is real and what is not.

There are three fundamental aspects of discernment: we must accept conventional reality; accept ultimate reality; recognize non-duality. Let’s look at this one at a time.

Conventional reality is a day-to-day reality. It is completely an internal mental representation. Meaning it is all playing out in our minds. For example, when we see something, actually our eyes see the image and that image is then inverted in the retina and then our mind actually interprets the image. This is true for all of our senses. Our mind interprets our sensations of touch, smell, etc. Human senses are limited. The human eye is capable of seeing only 1% of the light spectrum. So what we see is limited. Similarly, we cannot hear all the frequencies of sound. In addition, we are bound by emotional distortion that limits our ability to perceive. For example, when we are afraid, we see things that are not there and when we are distracted we don’t see things that are there. That is why eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.  

Conventional reality depends upon cultural agreements if you will. We all agree on a set of rules that allows us to accept certain things as long as perception meets the function.

Part of conventional reality is to recognize that every cause produces similar effects in nature. The second assumption is that all effects have multiple causes and conditions. It is never a one-to-one relationship. There are multiple causes and conditions that have to come into place to manifest a particular effect. For example, when you buy a seed it does not create a plant. You need to plant it, put fertilizer in the soil, it needs rain or watering, sunlight, and so on. All of these causes and conditions must come into play for the seed to become a plant.

Ultimate reality is just like it says, the real truth. We don’t have direct access to ultimate reality but there are principles that we can understand. 1. There are no inherent characteristics. For example, beautiful to one person would be different for someone else. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What one person finds attractive another person finds repulsive. It is always subjective. So the characteristics do not exist from its own side. All characteristics are imputed. Long, short, far, near, strong, weak, good, bad, large, small, all of these are subjective and are imputed. We should also however apply a functionality test on it. For example, killing is bad or good are both imputed but functionally, killing is bad because it is bad for the one who gets killed. 2. Interdependence of all beings and equality of all beings is a fact. Interdependence is the basis of all science. Without pollination, for example, there is no agriculture. So interdependence is a fact. Equality is a fact because each being feels they are important. So this makes us all equal. We all want to be happy. There is no question about it.

Non-duality means that ultimate reality is the basis of conventional reality – meaning they are not separate from each other. These are not separate concepts. We must have a basis for everything. Without basis, we cannot even have distortion. All beings share the same essence. Science tells us this. We all have at core the same basic atomic structure. In the spiritual realm, we say all beings have the same soul or the very subtle mind.

Once we have these three basic components in mind, it becomes easy to discern. We accept what needs to be accepted, assume what needs to be assumed, and respect what needs to be respected. The combination of this wisdom is what gives us true perception. As we discussed in the past, the function of our mind is to perceive. Once we understand these basic principles, our perception becomes clear. Our judgment becomes clear and our decisions are better.

It is good to promote discernment in today’s world because people are susceptible to believe anything and everything without reason. One can choose to believe what they want as long as they understand that it is just a belief and not based on truth.

Perseverance

Today, I want to talk about one of the six perfections. We have already talked about a couple of the perfections in the past including generosity and patience. Let’s discuss today perseverance. This is also known as vigor and enthusiasm. I am sure you have heard this expression that goes half of life is just showing up. I used to tell this to my kids all the time. All that means is to make sure that you are consistently showing up for what needs to be done. Keep giving your efforts without regard to short-term results or lack thereof.

Let me give you an example. When I came to the US, during the first semester, I was paying for all my expenses. As an international student, the fees are really high. So the goal for most international students is to receive a research assistant position where the University waives your tuition and pays you a small stipend on top of that. Within the first month of starting the semester, I started talking to professors for a potential research assistant position. One professor told me, he had a grant application out with the National Science Foundation and if it was approved, he would have two or three positions open. I would go visit the professor every two weeks to see if heard anything from the NSF. About two months later, one day I visited the professor and asked if he heard anything. To my surprise, he said, yes his application was approved and he would need three research assistants on that project. He said there were about ten students who were asking him for a position. Then he said something totally surprising. He said he was going to interview everyone for two of the position and he was offering me one of the positions. I thanked him and he went, do you know why I offered you this position? I had no clue. He explained that I was the only one, who was persistent, meeting him every two weeks, and wanted his lead researcher to be someone with that kind of drive. Who knew?

The point here is that no matter how many times you hear no, or fail, we must get up and move towards our goal. Let me put it another way. Have you ever owned a stock? I am not a stock market guy personally. But I have heard so many stories where people get out of their position because it was going down just to see their stocks turn around and go higher.  If they only held on to that for a few more days or weeks. Again, this is not meant to be stock market advice. I have zero experience in the stock market.

What perseverance means is that we must become independent of internal and external influences when we are moving toward a goal. All of you are here listening to these meditation videos and attending sessions because something in you tells you that you want to become mindful. You want some level of mental peace and joy and bliss within you. if that is the goal then please make sure that you don’t get influenced by outside influences. You will have good meditation days and not-so-good meditation days. Some days you may feel like you met Buddha himself and other days, your mind is so wound up that nothing brings peace it seems. That is perfectly OK. With time, you will be able to get into a situation where no matter the external conditions, you will be able to bring your mind to peace.

So please don’t give up because you think you are not making progress in your meditation practice. You are certainly making a progress. I had this interesting discussion with a young person. This person is in their early twenties and was having some challenges. I was trying to help them walk through the situation and kind of helping them make a plan for long-term success. We would talk weekly. After a couple of weeks, they said it doesn’t seem like they are making any progress and it feels two steps forward and one step backward. I said OK; imagine if you are walking from your house to the nearest pizza place. Let’s say it is 1,000 steps away. Once you start your journey, let’s say you take two steps forward and one step backward. After say about 10 minutes, you are 20 steps away from your house. If you did not take one step backward, you would have been 30 steps away. Even with 20 steps away from your house, you are still closer to the pizza place than you were if you were just sitting in your house. And that is what is important.

The moral of the discussion here is to make sure you keep performing beneficial actions and don’t give up because you are not seeing immediate results.