Category: The Eight Worldly Winds

Don’t Hit the Fast-forward Button

November 2, 2020

4 Noble Truths, Equanimity, Everyday practices, fearlessness, impermanence, not abandoning, Self-care, self-compassion, The Eight Worldly Winds, The End of craving, Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddha with cranes, photo by Celia

“And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: “Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!”[58]
This was the last word of the Tathagata.”
~”Maha-parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha” (DN 16), translated from the Pali by Sister Vajira & Francis Story

For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
(English Standard Version Bible)

Dear friends,

Last week, I honestly looked at my desires and saw how much I wanted to fast forward life, to be past this election, past the pandemic. I wanted it over and was not looking forward to living through the process of having these things unfold moment by moment. I had real resistance to this pain of uncertainty and the not knowing. When I was able to stay present with the discomfort with compassion, something shifted. I don’t know exactly the catalyst. I do know that there was a moment of joy when I recognized that I have been taught how to hold my suffering. I know what to do and I am doing it.

There is a joy that comes when we do not abandon ourselves, when we have the confidence to stay present and to say, “I got you. I am here for you, no matter what.” I come back to this self-compassion over and over. It is the most transformative and powerful medicine I have received from my practice. Showing up and knowing that no matter how good or how bad, I have the resources to stay.

The Buddha’s teaching on the Eight Worldly Winds, also called the vicissitudes, has helped me put my experience into perspective. 2,600 years ago, the Buddha said, “Monks, these eight worldly conditions spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions. Which eight? Gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. These are the eight worldly conditions that spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions. (Lokavipatti Sutta: The Failings of the World, T. Bhikkhu, trans.)”

In this ancient teaching, we can see the universality of loss and pain. We encounter this in the first Noble Truth, that suffering, or stress exists. We also know that there are causes and reasons for suffering. This is the second Noble Truth. When we see the causes for suffering and discomfort in our lives, this gives us understanding and clarity. Recognizing these conditions leads us to the Third Noble Truth, that there is the opposite of suffering. The law of impermanence teaches that nothing can exist forever, this too will change. It cannot stay the same.

I can feel lots of compassion for us as a country and a world, longing for this pandemic to end, longing for racial justice, for change, for hope. And I remember a teaching by Buddhist nun Pema Chodron who was caught in distress. Her teacher asked her to notice the years of habits it took to for her to get into that state and to know it would take a while to get out. As a country, we have been planting the painful and violent seeds of racial inequality for more than 400 years. It takes time to uproot those dangerous vines long interwoven in the culture of America. This requires staying with the frustration, the discomfort, and the exhaustion. If we know how to show up when we are in pain, we will have more ability to be the hand that risks discomfort by pulling out the creeping thorns by the roots.

When we leave our experience, we lose the opportunity to develop trust in ourselves. As we learn to stay with the difficult and painful with compassion, we also learn how to titrate—not to exceed our capacity—to have a touch and go relationship with suffering that can help us to stay in self-trust. This is already the Fourth Noble Truth, stepping onto the path of practice ascribed by the Buddha. This path is powerful medicine to strengthen us against the forces that can overwhelm and destabilize our minds and hearts.

In 2013, Thich Nhat Hanh gave a series of retreats titled, The Art of Suffering. I remember him saying that he would never want his children to go to heaven if there were no suffering there. They needed suffering—a little bit, not too much—to grow and to stretch. They also needed to experience suffering to know what the end of suffering feels like. There could be no heaven if there was no opposite of heaven. This is the law of non-duality. Nothing can exist by itself alone. It needs a counterbalance or opposite to allow it to be known.

In the retreat, Thay spoke about staying present with our suffering, owning it, being available for it. When I want to fast forward through my life and wish it all away, I deny that I have competency and the presence to take care of myself. I forget my own resilience and strength and dodge whatever I see coming out of fear and reactivity instead of taking a breath, feeling my feet on the ground and connecting with my deepest intention, the realization of cessation, freedom, or nibbana. When I know suffering, and also know my own ability to accompany myself, I know the end of suffering.

Liberation is the act of non-abandoning is a way I show myself kindness and trust. I trust that I can be there for me. I trust that my presence liberates myself from the prison of helplessness, from rushing through. I can call upon my supports, my ancestors and those I admire who have lived through wars, through oppression, through situations that I have not experienced in my life time and they still found their freedom. Freedom is a way to reclaim our power.

The more our culture is infiltrated by algorithms that direct us towards what to feel, what to believe, who to trust, the more we are manipulated by what is outside of us. Returning to ourselves, to reclaim our freedom and our innate goodness is a radical act of self-accompaniment. We are truly free when we know that we have our own support no matter what comes, and we are ready, excited even to meet that challenges of accompanying ourselves.

When we have touched the benefits of practice, of meditation, stillness, and centering, we are able to return to the place in us. We learn over time that this is not dependent upon conditions. It is determined by our commitment to our own liberation, our own enlightenment. Enlightenment is the promise that we are born with the ability to live in the classroom of our lives and to learn what is necessary for us. Enlightenment is the stilling and the end of our desire to make this moment any different. We do this practice, not by giving up, but by straightening up.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

2 comments on Don’t Hit the Fast-forward Button
Mindfulness Lab:101

August 26, 2019

Awakening where we are, Awareness, habit patterns, Listening to Ourselves, Mindfulness of feelings, Mindfulness of the Body, present moment, Sangha, The Eight Worldly Winds, Uncategorized, understanding Negativity Bias, Understanding Reactivity

Blue Cliff Monastery, Photo by Celia

“Spiritual practice is not just sitting and meditating. Practice is looking, thinking, touching, drinking, eating, and talking. Every act, every breath, and every step can be practice and can help us to become more ourselves.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“Mindfulness is not difficult; we just need to remember to do it.” ~ Sharon Salzberg

“What are you using that time for? Are you using your time to worry or using your time to live?” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear friends,

It’s not hard to love people when they’re silent. On silent retreats, especially those with extended periods of quiet and intensive meditation practice, I can send metta and imagine my fellow retreatants in perfect health. I can wish they have no sorrow and their lives be filled with joy. Fast forward to the end of the retreat and my dedicated practice of openhearted friendliness and wishing the best for others can come to a screeching halt when they open their mouths. Even after deep realizations about our interconnectedness, our non-self nature and how we are caught in habit patterns, all these valuable and worthy insights seem to evaporate when we are faced with folks behaving the way they sometimes do. All our insights and wisdom are put to the test in relationship, in working and living with others who may say or do the wrong thing. Showing up as a part-time Buddha in our real life is what we are practicing for.

A week ago, I was on staff at the For a Future to be Possible retreat at Blue Cliff Monastery. What is both wonderful and challenging about Blue Cliff is that it’s a place where we are embodying the Dharma in a relational way. It’s a sort of mindfulness lab where we can experience mindful living in community. We practice mindful working, eating, communicating, and even being a mindful roommate. For this retreat, I came with the expectation of encountering confusion and clarity, moments of disconnection and community, and times when folks liked what I did when they didn’t—and I wasn’t disappointed. I met all of that and more.

In life and on retreat we encounter the Eight Worldly Winds or vicissitudes that blow through life. The Buddha was the ultimate systems analysist. He saw all life as functioning in conjunction with the concert of wholeness and that our perception is a small fragmented piece of what is truly arising. In the Lokavipatti Sutta, AN 8:6, the Buddha described a way to understand our experience of being in relationship with others and ourselves using the teaching of the Eight Worldly Winds. They are a codified example of the moving and fluid nature of our perception—and a reminder that our experience is not as personal as we think. The Worldly Winds are presented as pairs, with one aspect being something desirable and pleasant, and the other—not so much: they are gain and loss, status and disgrace, praise and blame, pleasure and pain.

You may have shared this experience of encountering one email praising us for something we’ve done and another letting us know that the exact same thing did not meet another’s needs—both on the same day. Because of the ingrained negativity bias in humans, we may find the email not liking what we did, sticks in our minds. It’s easy to run past the praise, dismissing it as coming from someone who’s easy to please, or that what we’ve done isn’t really that great—and we may find it easy to focus on criticism and get caught analyzing how we have missed the mark for the other person.

The negativity bias is part of our biological evolutionary strategy and was a useful tool for our ancestors who needed to be aware of the poison berries, the snake that bites, the warlike tribe or person who threatens our lives. We humans got very adept as distinguishing threat and avoiding it to protect our gene line and this biological evolutionary adaptation is still in play today. Although most of us don’t have to focus on which roots are edible and which will kill us, we, as a species, still give priority attention to what harms us and makes life dangerous.

Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, Ph.D. tells us that in relationship we store up the bad and skip over the good—so much so, that it takes five positive interactions to diminish the sting of one negative encounter. We are so sensitized to criticism that we as a species tend to overestimate threat and interpret another person’s disapproval as dangerous and threatening. We can get very tight and defended when we encounter the downside of the Worldly Winds. What can help to keep us in an open relational state are two things. The first is to recognize that in moments when we are not hearing the acknowledgment or acceptance we are longing, that this is our turn at experiencing disapproval. We can remind ourselves that we also experience praise and that both these shifting winds are temporary, inconsistent, and depend upon conditions. The second way to practice is to bring our own care and compassion into this experience and to let ourselves be fully present without pushing away this feeling of sadness, disappointment, or hurt. We can look deeply at our instrument of emotion—our body—noting where this experience directly in the body. What does it feel like to be blamed? Where does it live in the body—in the flushed cheeks, the constricted throat, the burning of adrenalin in the hands? Can we stay with the sensations as they too shift and live out the life of this impermanent emotion?

A young nun on the retreat shared her experience with anger with me and a group of teens. She said she was aware when she was hurt and angry there was the desire to hurt the other person as much as they had hurt her. When we look at the range of experience we have in life, the hurt can take on a different meaning. It can be the portal to the way we practice with this condition in the world—the condition of blame or bad reputation. Doing our best to live in accordance with the Dharma involves actively working to reconcile and address these hurts and miscommunications as they occur. It takes bravery and vulnerability to stop continuing in the same pattern of aversion and distancing. Seeing these moments as part of this greater system of life can allow us to see these painful experiences not as torture and grounds for war, but as practice opportunities.

When I find myself tossed about by the changing winds, I remind myself, oh, this is what blame feels like. It doesn’t feel good—and I can be present for this too. I care about this feeling. The simple joy of fearlessly feeling what we feel can be a surprising balm for the painful side of the Worldly Winds. And moment after moment, we learn to trust that we can befriend ourselves through both gentle breezes and the wildest storms.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

Calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

2 comments on Mindfulness Lab:101

Category: The Eight Worldly Winds

Don’t Hit the Fast-forward Button

Mindfulness Lab:101