The Art of Happiness (18 page)

As promised during the course of our conversations, true to his word, the Dalai Lama concluded one public talk in Arizona with a meditation on compassion. It was a simple exercise. Yet in a powerful and elegant way, he seemed to summarize and crystallize his previous discussion of compassion, turning it into a formal five-minute exercise that was direct and to the point.

 

 

“In generating compassion, you start by recognizing that you do not want suffering and that you have a right to have happiness. This can be verified or validated by your own experience. You then recognize that other people, just like yourself, also do not want to suffer and that they have a right to have happiness. So this becomes the basis of your beginning to generate compassion.

“So ... let us meditate on compassion today. Begin by visualizing a person who is acutely suffering, someone who is in pain or is in a very unfortunate situation. For the first three minutes of the meditation, reflect on that individual's suffering in a more analytic way—think about their intense suffering and the unfortunate state of that person's existence. After thinking about that person's suffering for a few minutes, next, try to relate that to yourself, thinking, ‘that individual has the same capacity for experiencing pain, joy, happiness, and suffering that I do.' Then, try to allow your natural response to arise—a natural ,feeling of compassion towards that person. Try to arrive at a conclusion: thinking how strongly you wish for that person to be free from that suffering. And resolve that you will help that person to be relieved from their suffering. Finally, place your mind single-pointedly on that kind of conclusion or resolution, and for the last few minutes of the meditation try to simply generate your mind in a compassionate or loving state.”

 

 

With that, the Dalai Lama assumed a cross-legged meditation posture, remaining completely immobile as he practiced the meditation along with the audience. Stark silence. But there was something quite stirring about sitting among the assembly that morning. I imagine that even the most-hardened individual could not help being moved when surrounded by fifteen hundred people, every one of them holding the thought of compassion in their minds. After a few minutes, the Dalai Lama broke into a low Tibetan chant, his voice deep, melodic, gently breaking and falling in tones that soothed, comforted.

K
isagotami's search taught her that no one lives free from suffering and loss. She hadn't been singled out for this terrible misfortune. This insight didn't eliminate the inevitable suffering that comes from loss, but it did reduce the suffering that came from struggling against this sad fact of life.

Although pain and suffering are universal human phenomena, that doesn't mean we have an easy time accepting them. Human beings have devised a vast repertoire of strategies for avoiding having to experience suffering. Sometimes we use external means, such as chemicals—deadening and medicating our emotional pain with drugs or alcohol. We have an array of internal mechanisms as well—psychological defenses, often unconscious, that buffer us from feeling too much emotional pain and anguish when we are confronted with problems. Sometimes these defense mechanisms can be quite primitive, such as simply refusing to recognize that a problem exists. At other times, we may vaguely recognize that we have a problem but immerse ourselves in a million distractions or entertainments to avoid thinking about it. Or we might use projection—unable to accept that we have a problem, we unconsciously projectitonto others and blame them for our suffering: “Yeah, I'm miserable. But it's not me that has the problem; it's someone else who has the problem. If it wasn't for that damn boss constantly giving me a hard time [or ”my partner ignoring me“ or ... ], I'd be fine.”

Suffering can only be avoided temporarily. But like a disease that's left untreated (or perhaps superficially treated with medication that just masks the symptoms but doesn't cure the underlying condition), the disease invariably festers and worsens. The high from drugs or alcohol certainly eases our pain for a while, but with continued use, the physical damage to our bodies and the social damage to our lives can cause far more suffering than the diffuse dissatisfaction or the acute emotional pain that led us to these substances in the first place. The internal psychological defenses like denial or repression may shield and protect us from feeling the pain a bit longer, but it still doesn't make the suffering disappear.

Randall lost his father to cancer a little over a year ago. He was quite close to his father, and at the time everyone was surprised by how well he was taking the death. “Of course I'm sad,” he explained in a stoic tone. “But really I'm fine. I'll miss him, but life goes on. And anyway, I can't focus on missing him right now; I have to arrange the funeral and take care of his estate for my mom ... But I'll be fine,” he reassured everyone. One year later, however, shortly after the anniversary of his father's death, Randall began to spiral into a severe depression. He came to see me and explained, “I just can't understand what is causing this depression. Everything seems to be going well right now. It can't be the death of my father
_;
he died over a year ago, and I've already come to terms with his death.” With very little therapy it became clear, however, that in struggling to keep a tight reign on his emotions, in order to “be strong,” he had never fully dealt with his feelings of loss and grief. These feelings continued to grow until finally manifesting as an overpowering depression that he was forced to deal with.

In Randall's case, his depression lifted rather quickly as we focused on his pain and feelings of loss, and he was able to fully confront and experience his grief. Sometimes, however, our unconscious strategies to avoid facing our problems are more deep-seated—deeply ingrained coping mechanisms that can become embedded in our personality and are hard to extract. Most of us know a friend, acquaintance, or family member, for example, who avoids problems by projecting onto others and blaming them—accusing others of having faults that, in fact, are his or her own. This certainly isn't an effective method of eliminating problems, however, and many of these individuals are condemned to a lifetime of unhappiness as long as they continue in that pattern.

 

 

 

The Dalai Lama detailed his approach to human suffering—an approach that ultimately includes a belief in the possibility of freedom from suffering but starts with accepting suffering as a natural fact of human existence, and courageously facing our problems head-on.

 

 

 

In our daily lives problems are bound to arise. The biggest problems in our lives are the ones that we inevitably have to face, like old age, illness, and death. Trying to avoid our problems or simply not thinking about them may provide temporary relief, but I think that there is a better approach. If you directly confront your suffering, you will be in a better position to appreciate the depth and nature of the problem. If you are in a battle, as long as you remain ignorant of the status and combat capability of your enemy, you will be totally unprepared and paralyzed by fear. However, if you know the fighting capability of your opponents, what sort of weapons they have and so on, then you're in a much better position when you engage in the war. In the same way, if you confront your problems rather than avoid them, you will be in a better position to deal with them.“

This approach to one's problems was clearly reasonable, but pressing the issue a bit further, I asked, “Yes, but what if you directly confront a problem, and find out that there's no solution? That's pretty tough to face.”

“But I think it's still better to face it,” he replied with a martial spirit. “For example, you might consider things like old age and death as negative, unwanted, and simply try to forget about them. But eventually these things will come anyway. And if you've avoided thinking about these things, when the day comes that any of these events occur, it will come as a shock causing an unbearable mental uneasiness. However, if you spend some time thinking about old age, death, and these other unfortunate things, your mind will be much more stable when these things happen as you have already become acquainted with these problems and kinds of suffering and have anticipated that they will occur.

“That's why I believe it can be useful to prepare yourself ahead of time by familiarizing yourself with the kinds of suffering you might encounter. To use the battle analogy again, reflecting on suffering could be seen as a military exercise. People who never heard of war, guns, bombing, and so on might faint if they had to go into battle. But through military drills you could familiarize your mind with what might occur, so if a war erupted, it would not be so hard on you.”

“Well, I can see how familiarizing ourselves with the kinds of suffering we might encounter would have some value in reducing fear and apprehension, but it still seems that sometimes certain dilemmas present no option but the possibility of suffering. How can we avoid worry in those circumstances?”

“A dilemma such as?”

I stopped to consider. “Well, let's say, for example, that a woman is pregnant and they do an amniocentesis or sonogram and find out that the child will have a significant birth defect. They discover that the child will have some extreme mental or physical handicap. So, obviously the woman is filled with anxiety because she doesn't know what to do. She can choose to do something about the situation and get an abortion, to save the baby from a life of suffering, but then she will experience a feeling of great loss and pain and perhaps she will also experience other feelings such as guilt. Or, she can choose to let nature take its course and have the baby. But then, she may be faced with a lifetime of hardship and suffering for herself and the child.”

The Dalai Lama listened intently as I spoke. With a somewhat wistful tone, he replied, “Whether one approaches these problems from the Western or the Buddhist perspective, these kinds of dilemmas are very difficult, very difficult. Now your example regarding the decision to abort the fetus with a birth defect—nobody really knows what would be better in the long run. Even if a child is born with a defect, maybe in the long run it would be better for the mother or the family or the child itself. But also there's the possibility that taking into account the long-term consequences, it is better to abort
_;
maybe that could be more positive in the long run. But then who decides? It's very difficult. Even from the Buddhist viewpoint, that sort of judgment is beyond our rational ability.” He paused, then added, “I think, though, that their background and beliefs would play a role in how particular individuals might respond to this kind of difficult situation ...”