OM NOT A BIG DEAL HUM

Hi everyone! I listened to “Everything is in its right place” by Radio Head on the way to work this morning. Where else could everything be?

I spent part of Sunday at Emaho learning about Patience. Now you may be wondering why I would be interested in this topic considering that I am not a doctor.

Wa Wa Wa

Reminds me of part of a skit on the TV show MASH where Alan Alda played Groucho Marx:

Groucho: “Nurse, Nurse, come here!”
Nurse: “You called me, doctor?”
G: “Why would I call you doctor? I’m the physician!”

Patience, from a Buddhist perspective means not getting angry. Ultimately the way to not get angry is to really connect with the realization that everything is in its right place. That means that when something is going on that is troublesome, you can see it in terms of its interdependency with everything else - its natural position in the scheme of things - it is in its right place. Patience is enhanced with three types of understanding: The understanding that there is suffering, the understanding of the truth of Dharma, and the understanding that accepts difficult people. The understanding that there is suffering clears away the wrong view of escaping difficulties. With this understanding, if difficulties come your mind won’t get caught up in wishing that everything was smooth all the time. That’s actually the source of a lot of suffering, especially for us ’spiritual practitioners’. Personally, I got into Buddhism because I figured if I could get enlightened then I wouldn’t have to go to work any more. I would be free from that type of situation where anything is required. Everything is struggling on some level - basically we are surviving. We are struggling to survive. What is the sound of struggle? Listen to your own heart beat. Maybe it would like to take a rest - maybe your heart feels tired. But as soon as it rests its responsibility becomes clear. Bump. Bump. Bump. Even after Shakyamuni became enlightened he still had to eat. He would take breaks from teaching because his back hurt. But we don’t want to accept trouble. We ache and cry whenever it comes - we want to never have problems. This causes extra problems! Do you see that? Actually, the most painful suffering comes from ideas that grow out of mere suffering. When I had my hernia operation I was very depressed. I felt broken. I had a cut on my groin and I wanted to be put away in a mental hospital or something. My mind went crazy and that’s because I hated the idea of being so sick. I had no patience. I wouldn’t accept my suffering. So that’s the first type of acceptance - accepting suffering.

Then there is accepting the truth of dharma. Notice that dharma here has a small ‘d’. Small ‘d’ dharma means everything is changing. Everything that is a thing is called dharma in Sanskrit. This means that it has come together and it will change. Everything that you have now, even your body, will decay. That’s true! Maybe it seems morbid to think about that, that your mind is sitting on a decaying pile of temporary pleasures and pains, but there is something valuable in being realistic. When we ignore these things we will eventually have to face them and then we will become angry, we will lose our patience - many people die in a furious state because they feel gypped. Like they did everything right and now here they are, falling to pieces. It’s as if they didn’t believe that it would happen to them - maybe they feel like they had a special deal. Very few people accept that everything is impermanent and changing. Things are decaying right now. It is not the case that everything is very solid and then, just at the end, it falls apart. Everything that exists will go away. This is true. Accepting this leads to patience when things change.

Then the third type of acceptance is . . . . .. .

I don’t remember right now.

Oh, yes I do. It is accepting difficult people - both people outside of you and yourself. Actually, you are the most difficult person to yourself. Maybe you call yourself bad names in your head because you screwed up in this and that situation. This is also a lack of patience, a lack of acceptance that people are difficult.

See, patience leads to happy states, anger leads to suffering. That is true. When you are patient, anger cannot arise - the mind can not be angry and patient at the same time. By not experiencing anger your body won’t experience all kinds of very heavy duty bad chemicals - it won’t oxidize as quickly - you will have a smile instead of a frown. You can enjoy patience. In fact if you are not enjoying it, then it is not quite there. Maybe you are just begrudgingly tolerating something - waiting anxiously for the moment when it is over - acting like a good boy or girl.

Rinpoche told this story about a meditator coming out of retreat. He didn’t tell it exactly like I am going to - but that’s okay, its just a story.

This yogi had been meditating a long time and had gotten some genuine spiritual experience. He decided it was time for him to go back into the town down the hill for a visit. As he was walking he came across a very rude man. The man said all kinds of nasty things, it seemed he didn’t like meditators. “How can you be so selfish” “Your body stinks and you look awful” “You are a coward running from society.” He said stuff like that - things that meditators get crap for all the time. The yogi just listened patiently - his expression didn’t change. After some time the rude man became a bit distraught. Its hard to go on with insults if you don’t get any response. Finally he said, ‘What is wrong with you!? I am insulting you here, don’t you have any honor, why won’t you fight back? Normal people would get so angry.’

The yogi said, “I have a question for you. If you give someone a present and they don’t want it - if they can’t use it and so they don’t accept it, who, then does the present belong to?”

The rude man said, ‘well, the person who is trying to give it away’

The yogi said, ‘well, I don’t need your angry words, so you get to keep them, they belong to you.’

So dealing with difficult people is like this. Rinpoche says it is as simple as just not taking what others think personally. That goes really deep, actually.

Someone raised their hand at this point (remember, this all comes from a teaching) and asked, “Rinpoche, is there some sort of mantra a person can say to help to deal with someone who is acting like that, who is being so rude?”

Rinpoche thought for a moment - just a moment, and then he said, ‘yes there is a mantra - “OM NOT A BIG DEAL HUM”. Everyone laughed very hard. I bet everyone in the room laughed. Then he said, “I’m kind of kidding but really not.” He went on to explain that mantra does not have to be in Sanskrit. He said the purpose of mantra is to invoke memory of something meaningful (I think there are other purposes as well), so mantra can be in English. So that’s a really good mantra, he said.

Okay, so I hope you are all having a wonderful day and that you will all learn to deepen your patience through acceptance of the truths of struggle, impermanence, and difficult people.

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