“If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. But that is the most that hope can do for us – to make some hardship lighter. When I think deeply about the nature of hope, I see something tragic. Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment. We use hope to believe something better will happen in the future, that we will arrive at peace, or the Kingdom of God. Hope becomes a kind of obstacle. If you can refrain from hoping, you can bring yourself entirely into the present moment and discover the joy that is already here.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Dear Friends,
Some of you may have noticed that while the characteristics of faith, trust, and impermanence all have a starring role in the Buddhist lexicon, the word hope is conspicuously absent. What is it about hope that makes it an outlier attribute? Why didn’t the Buddha prescribe a practice of hope for his followers?
I looked up hope and Miriam Webster’s describes it as “desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment,” ahh—there’s the rub—the expectation of fulfillment. As Thich Nhat Hanh points out, hope can be an obstacle when it prevents us from accepting what is. Hope can have us leaning into the future where we believe things will be better, we, or our loved ones, will be healed, or different. The reason that this word hope is so tricky is held in our motivation to act. What happens if this is as good as it gets—or if things get worse? What happens to our willingness to try when we see our dreams smashed against the rocks of reality again and again? Maybe there is something that has the power to motivate, the way hope does but without pinning our wellbeing on the accomplishment of our goal?
In the common usage of hope, we link hope with optimism and agency. Agency is the belief that our actions are meaningful and have an impact on our lives. In the Psychology of Hope Theory, “Hope is defined as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways” (Snyder, 2012). This definition is synonymous with taking action to create desired change, not contingent upon the success of those actions. In everyday speech when someone is without hope, we think of a pessimistic, depressed person, too despairing to make any effort to change a situation.
In Buddhism, there is the inherent understanding that all actions (kamma/karma) have unescapable meaning and consequence. Thoughts leading to action or inaction have meaning as well. We also understand that because of impermanence, we have the opportunity to create constant change. There is also the support of an ethical framework (sila) that gives us the foundation to take action with kindness and concern for the wellbeing of ourselves and others. Through the wisdom of mindful awareness, we learn what thoughts, words, and deeds lead to our happiness and which do not.
Forest monk and translator, Thanissaro Bhikkhu (2010) describes the unfolding events in our lives as “[T]ools for Awakening. With every moment we’re supplied with raw materials — some of them attractive, some of them not. Instead of embracing them in delight or throwing them away in disgust, we can learn how to use them to produce the keys that will unlock our prison doors.” The ability to see that all events as opportunities supplies us with an unending source of hope for our happiness and the happiness of others. This understanding embraces the everyday view of hope with the wisdom and guidance of the highest qualities of the mind, the Brahmaviharas.
We cultivate these heart qualities first in our own being. As they mature, they pervade our life and spread to each situation and life we encounter. They include the desire to bring universal friendliness (metta/maître), compassion, (karuna), the wish to relieve the suffering of all beings including ourselves, and the willingness to be happy at the good fortune of others (mudita) without jealousy or envy. The special sauce in the assemblage of the brahmaviharas is equanimity (upekkha), the wisdom which understands that it is possible to love and care without making it contingent upon success and having things change the way we would like them to. Equanimity gives us the ability to extend our compassion despite our intention of kindness being misinterpreted, unwelcomed, or discounted, despite the illness which does not improve, or the diagnosis staying the same.
When we come from this openhearted intention to bring about change to benefit all beings, we do not tether our motivation on success. True compassion and love know that in disappointment, these qualities are more necessary than ever. We can understand that disappointment and discouragement are critical arenas for engaging unflagging love, patience, equanimity, and above all compassion for the very feelings of failure or discouragement. If these feelings are not met with this response, they can become the ballast that destroys all our agency and willingness to try. When we can meet disappointment with wisdom and love, we transcend hope. This is the motivation that goes beyond beginnings and endings, beyond life and death. With love and wisdom, there is no question that there is the willingness to try, to try, and to try again.
May we all trust our light,
Celia
References:
Thanissaro, B. (2010, June 5). All about change. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition) Webpage. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/change.html.
Snyder, C. R. (2002) Hope theory: Rainbows in the mind. Psychological Inquiry, 13(4), 249-275. DOI: 10.1207/S15327965PLI1304_01