How to Face Challenges without Suffering with Rick Hanson

I offer these every week along with a guided meditation. Just click the subscribe link below to be notified through YouTube when I post the latest recording. Or, if you'd like to join us live, which would be great, just go into the description section below and follow the link along to be able to sign up for free. About that meditation, and I appreciated the kind feedback from many, someone asked me, When I speak of vastness and stillness, it reminds me, Margaret, of the statement that nothing, two exclamation points, is separate, no thing. Is that what you're pointing to? And here's where it has helped me personally a lot to find a kind of map that gives me a sense of the path. And it's important, of course, not to be attached to our maps. And as they say, the menu is not the meal. What I'm referring to, as you can see in my response to Margaret, is what I observe is that there are three kind of sort of layers that can be usefully understood each in their own right. And so, as your mind gets quieter, your body gets quieter, your mind gets quieter, aided by a sense of needs met enough in the moment, maybe with a background of kind of basic well-being, you're okay in the moment. As that happens, there can be a sense, increasingly, of abiding as awareness or abiding as presence in which, through which, experiences come and go, appearing, occurring, passing away. So there you are, this kind of awareness. And then there can be a knowing of the inherent openness, vastness in awareness, in presence, with itself an inherent stillness, because the awareness or the presence is stable. Disturbances pass through it. Awareness itself is undisturbed, so there's a stillness, even a deep quiet inside you that has a quality of peacefulness. So this is in the psyche itself. This is in, can be understood as, okay, that's what's happening in the body-mind when it's getting pretty quiet. Oh, we can discover and enjoy and increasingly abide as and identify with qualities of vastness, and feel free to choose other words that work for you, vastness, stillness, and peacefulness. That's at the level of the psyche. More deeply in this map, second, can be a sense of the vastness of the Big Bang universe, the inherent vastness of it, and the ways in which the universe, as the universe, is always the universe, and therefore there's a profound fundamental stillness in my poetic word allness, the allness of everything, in which there is one single allness of everything. So as allness, it's always allness, so there's a stillness to it. This is intuitive. You can have flashes of this sometimes in these non-dual experiences, where there's a sense of oneness, where basically you just recognize what's true, that the universe as a whole is of course vast, everything's connected to everything else vastly, and as a whole, it is always the whole, thus still, and there can be an extremely deep peacefulness that's available to you as you recognize that you yourself, your apparent body-mind, is simply a passing patterning of this all-abiding wholeness of the universe altogether. And if this is merely poetic for you or intellectual for you, no problem. This is a map that charts movement, and people really do and can increasingly be grounded in this sense of kind of an incredible inner peace. It's like the wave knowing that it's being made by the whole ocean and is itself rippling out into the ocean, and that its very nature is water. This is an invitation. And you can see what I'm describing and the distinctions I'm marking in this loose map, you can find in wisdom teachings throughout the world, and I find it's really helpful to kind of clarify. Are we talking about the deep stillness in the psyche, the ordinary psyche? Are we talking about the oneness of the Big Bang universe, the natural universe? Or third, third on the map, are we talking about a mysterious, underlying, you know, ground of all that is absolute, or that is unconditioned, in contrast to the conditioned unfolding of the Big Bang universe, unconditioned, timeless, in contrast to the time-bound unfolding of the natural universe. And that's the ultimate ground of all. The Buddha pointed to it in his use of the term unconditioned, or he described it mainly through negation, the deathless, the unborn, the undying. He didn't go further, as various religious traditions might, with languaging like spirit or divine or God, you know, kind of stayed with sort of minimalist, unconditioned, vastness, boundlessness, timelessness, the stillness, and in which a profound, ultimate peacefulness can be found, which was his own journey of awakening, moving into cessation and then returning, profound peacefulness, nibbana, nirvana. So that's the third, and we can have intuitions of that third if we do. We can have a sense of it. We can even have a sense of it co-mingling with the conditioned, relative, unfolding universe in which our bodies and minds, you know, mainly live. If you don't relate to that third step, and many do not, it's okay, I'm not going to argue about it. I will say that many of us, including me, have a very real, felt sense of it, and informed belief in it, and I, in my view, that is what the Buddha was pointing to in that third step. He was pointing to that in his movement through one conditioned experience after another into the ultimate basis for a lasting happiness and peace, the unconditioned, that third step. So I'm pointing to all three of those in that meditation, and respecting you, frankly, to do something that, as I grumble briefly, grumble, grumble, that many teachers of mine in my early encounters with Buddhism, they just weren't willing to really name and invite the second and especially the third level, depth, and to bring it to life. To me, that's kind of condescending, and I don't want to do that with you. And if it's not real for you, it's not real, it's really okay. Or if it's real for you, but you're not there, like the top of Mount Everest is real for me, I'm never going to be there. Frankly, it seems like a lot of work to get up to the top of that sucker these days. Anyway, now I'd like to talk with you about something that's very practical and psychological, and that has to do with three fundamental words, and I'm going to tell you what the words are, that are, I would say, at the essence of 90% or more of the early teachings of the Buddha. In the later evolutions, in the Mahayana traditions, and Tibet, and Chan, and Zen, and even Pure Land, there are different elaborations, but in the core of the Buddha Dharma, I'm going to argue that a lot of what the Buddha taught boils down to three words. Here are the three words in Pali, a language, a key language of early Buddhism. First word is dukkha. Now dukkha can be understood in two ways. It can be understood first as the inescapable challenges that are simply a fact of living. There are three fundamental facts of living that the Buddha pointed to. This is not an exclusive list. There's more to it than that, but certainly facts of living include impermanence, interdependence, and I'll translate dukkha as challenges. There's no end to the impermanence, to the interdependence, and to the challenges of living. Enlightened or not, these will continue. Noted in the Four Noble Truths as the first of these, there is the kind of dukkha that we create ourselves that is not simply an object of unavoidable, inescapable discomfort or challenging condition in life, but is, to use the metaphor, the second darts that we add ourselves to the inescapable impermanence, interdependence, and challenges of existence. Buddhism has a rap, has a very grim, dour, grumpy religion, and in some ways, the fact that it squarely faces the first dart, inescapable dukkha, and the second dart of the mental reactivity and anguish and suffering we create ourselves, the fact that Buddhism really foregrounds those things, helps people really appreciate it, and the Buddha is not bullshitting us. He's not fooling around. That said, if you think of the difference between unavoidable challenges in life and the ultimately avoidable mental suffering we create for ourselves and others, wow, when you recognize there's a difference between those two, that is incredibly hopeful. And it's incredibly blunt in the ways that it foregrounds our own responsibility to practice as best we can with the challenges of life, both out in the world, improving the world, there's a place for that, and in terms of how they unavoidably impact us, like aging, disease, and death, for example, it's on each individual to find their way, to develop strengths inside, like coming here to this program, this Wednesday Meditation, to deal with challenges, and it's on us to deal with the habit patterns, the reactivities, the biological conditioning that we have as animals that add suffering to pain, that add suffering to challenges. So we have both a beautiful, hopeful opportunity, and a clear-eyed recognition of our own responsibility to do something about that opportunity. Super hope, super hopeful, I think. Second word. So now we have, and I'm going to speak mainly here about dukkha in either of its two forms, inescapable first dark dukkha, and the dukkha we construct ourselves. Second dark dukkha. Now I'm going to introduce a second word, sukha. Sukha contrasts to dukkha. Sukha is the root of the word in the Indo-European languages, Sanskrit at their root, for sucrose, and thus sugar. Sukha has to do with enjoyable experiences of all sorts. There is the momentary sukha of drinking a little water if your throat, like mine, is getting a little dry. There is the physical sukha of a deeper, fuller breath. There is the sukha of watching our children thrive. The sukha of watching kind of a cute little kitten video. There's the sukha of knowing that you put in a good day's work, and it's honorable, no blank, good for you. Sukha. So we have sukha in contrast to dukkha. Now it is true that all sukha, all that is involved with well-being in simple ways and in very subtle and vast ways, all those experiences, like all experiences, both dukkha experiences and sukha experiences are impermanent. We don't mind dukkha experiences being impermanent. We tend to not like it when the sweetness fades. But on the other hand, if we, and I'll get to this, can allow sukha to arise and allow it to persist and allow it to pass away, then we don't add dukkha to it. And I like the fact that these words rhyme, dukkha, sukha. Now there's a third word, very important word. I think arguably it's the most important word probably, or it's in the top five. Maybe they're all tied for first place. I'll have to think what the other four are. Nominations are welcome. This is the word tanha. So we have dukkha, D-U-K-K-H-A, sukha, S-U-K-H-A. This is the way they're typically spelled in English. These are ancient, ancient, ancient words. And then we have tanha, which is typically translated as craving. Tanha is the second noble truth. There is craving. And when craving, and the cause of second dark dukkha, the cause of, I'll say, suffering, distinct from challenges, the cause of suffering, or certainly a fundamental cause of suffering, arguably the deep root cause of suffering, is tanha, craving. Now craving can sound like, oh my gosh, I've got to get my heroin. I've never experienced that. But, you know, I've nearly drowned. I really, when I was panicking during the drowning experience, I really craved air. There's a place for craving, which is characterized in the body. It feels like pressure, insistence, must, drivenness, demand, being really revved up, maybe. You know, you've got to run into a burning building to get your kid out, or his teddy bear. I was there one time. And your dissertation discs for your PhD, and your car keys, and your shoes. As I ran into the apartment building with my wife yelling at me, don't be stupid! Don't be stupid! I managed to make it out with the teddy bear, dissertation discs, shoes, and car keys. But anyway, there's a place for that. It's not that it's bad. But we can see that a lot of the time, when we work backwards from being upset about something, we can work backwards and we can ask ourselves, huh, where was the craving in all this? Challenges occur. Let's say other people frown at you, or say something, or they, you know, don't like something you're doing. Is it in, you know, it's maybe unpleasant, okay. But what made it even worse in your own mind? Probably some form of craving. Subtle or gross. Insistence, demand, often a lot of self-contraction, contraction around it. The Buddha is basically calling us in a whole variety of ways to be mindful of craving, and gradually decondition the habits of craving. Now, very, very briefly, I'm going to summarize a whole bunch of stuff. When you look at craving neurobiologically, there are essentially three things we can do. Number one, so craving is a response to an unmet need. Animals crave related to their needs. This is really important to address. People don't tend to talk about this in Buddha world, but it's cravings needs. All right, what do we need? To the extent that we can intervene in the world with all kinds of things, you know, good plumbing, fresh water, no more global warming, civil society, safe neighborhoods, stop signs, neighbors who control their dogs barking in the middle of the night. To the extent that we can intervene in the world to meet ordinary, reasonable human needs, that's a good thing. That will reduce the basis for craving. If you're running for your life in a war zone, of course you are craving things because you're not safe. You're not fed. Your children are not fed. You know, there's a lot of hostility and hatred flying around. Of course craving will arise. So number one, intervening in the world, in our relationships, in our neighborhoods, in our buildings, in society altogether to reduce unmet needs, to meet ordinary natural human needs, and to look for models in the world of communities and countries that are more successful at this in general than many, many other countries in the world. Okay, that's worth doing. That's engaged Buddhism in part. Second major thing to do, second and third, have to do with our own minds. Second, build up various psychological strengths inside. Resources, skills, emotional intelligence, secure attachment, executive functions, self-worth, insight, so forth, so forth. Build up these qualities inside, these strengths, so that when challenges come, you can meet them with a mind and body that is generally free of craving. We're certainly not hijacked by craving. If we don't have the strengths we need inside ourselves to deal with the challenges that come to us, of course it's that then our needs become unmet and then craving follows. But if challenges come and we still find ways to meet our needs in the face of those challenges and meet our needs skillfully, there's no basis for craving. Yeah, very direct. You might have your own inner list these days. What is it that you're trying to develop inside yourself so that you can meet your needs more effectively, including various, by needs I mean including quite broadly, important longings for your heart. And third thing to do ourselves about craving is to repeatedly internalize the felt sense of needs met enough in the moment, so that more and more an emotional memory, even as you deal with the wobbly challenges of life, you feel centered in resilient well-being as an emotional memory deep inside yourself. So that when challenges land on you, there's already a felt sense of an enoughness of peacefulness, contentment, and love inside you. Okay, that's kind of a serious summary of major practice with craving, tanha. So now I want to get to the interplay of these three words. I was talking with my friend John last week and he's traveled in India and he's a very sweet guy, John Prendergast, who's going to be a guest teacher as well in the future. Phenomenal non-dual teacher with amazing books. His most recent book is called The Deepest Ground. I wrote the foreword for it and I think his first book is called In Touch, or first book he did by himself, I think. Anyway, beautiful books. So we were talking and I realized that there is sukha sukha, sukha dukha, dukha sukha, and dukha dukha. All right, so bear with me here. Sometimes we start with the dukha of challenge and we react to it to create suffering. Let's call that dukha dukha. Okay, now other times there is a challenge and the managing of that challenge, the engagement of that challenge, leads to sukha, leads to a reward, a fulfillment. Maybe a feeling of accomplishing something. Maybe the challenge is how it's scary to speak from your heart in an interaction or relationship. Maybe the challenge is lifting that weight or holding that yoga pose. Maybe the challenge is grinding it out as I did in three separate grad schools. You know, the challenge of waking up in the middle of the night to walk your baby up and down the hallway. And yet the managing of that dukha can lead to the sukha of fulfillment, gratifications, of rewards, setting yourself up in life to be able to build things and make things and have things. Perhaps the dukha of how it's scary to assert yourself in a relationship or speak from the heart in your relationship can lead to a good outcome. That's the dukha that leads to sukha. I believe Ajahn Chah said that there are two kinds of dukha. There is the dukha that will lead to less dukha and more sukha. And there is the dukha that leads to more dukha. And he said, if you do not have more of the former, the dukha that leads to sukha, you will surely have more of the latter, the dukha that leads to more dukha. Okay? And I find it really actually helpful to realize that, yeah, in this life there are experiences that are not so enjoyable in the moment. Exercise of certain kinds definitely comes to my mind here. Persisting in a task that's boring because you need to finish it out. I was talking with some people earlier today about their young child, let's say a second-grade son, who really likes doing what he likes doing. And he just, he likes doing things that he's immediately good at. But if he's not immediately good at it, he doesn't want to persist in getting good at it. He doesn't want to tolerate the dukha of practicing like throwing a ball or hitting a softball or, you know, something in schoolwork. He just doesn't want to deal with that. And yet, it would be really valuable for him over time to learn to be more comfortable with that reasonable amount of dukha, which will lead to the sukha of getting really good at some things. So it's really helpful to think of it like this. You know, what is, and for you in your own case, is there some dukha that would be good for you to tolerate and allow and include in your life for the sake of a greater sukha, a greater fulfillment, a greater happiness? There's a proverb in Buddhism, wisdom is not reciting the sacred scriptures. Wisdom, true wisdom, is choosing a greater happiness over a lesser one. And very often, it is the greater happinesses that require some dukha at the front end. Sitting in meditation sometimes, disengaging from, you know, watching another episode of a TV show and instead getting to bed at a reasonable hour so you can get up the next morning and, you know, meditate or, you know, organize your day. There's a certain amount of sukha that, pardon me, dukha, certain amount of challenge or discomfort that we need to face and tolerate to have the greater rewards we care about. So I invite you to consider four things here, and we're working through the list. One, for you, what is the, what do you, how do you add craving to challenges in life that creates suffering for yourself and others? Okay. Second question, which we're now focused on, that's the first one is dukha-dukha. Think of four categories and yourself for these four categories. Second, dukha that leads to sukha. Would it be appropriate for you? Well, first of all, do this. What dukha have you tolerated and put up with for the sake of the greater good, the sukha that you really care about? And can you honor yourself for that? That's really important. And as you look ahead, I think most people in this gathering are past the midline of a lifespan, actually. As you look ahead, huh, is there some dukha, some challenge that would be appropriate for you to take on and not swerve away from or procrastinate about for the sake of the greater good, the greater happiness? That's the question. Now we're on to the third category. This is sukha-dukha, the sukha that leads to dukha. And this is an incredibly interesting category. Think of the various pleasures we seek of different kinds. Sense pleasures, food, intoxicants, sexuality, buying things. Think of the pleasures we seek or other kinds of pleasures, such as the pleasures in righteousness or superiority or proving your point. That kind of sukha can lead to dukha, can lead to discomfort, can lead to creating challenges for yourself of various kinds, wear and tear on the body, issues in relationships. We get seduced by sukha. Two weeks ago, I repeated a saying that has really stood out for me in the Buddhadharma. The Buddha was basically saying, as you go through life, be aware of three things, the gratification, the danger, and the escape. Thus, the gratification means that there's some sukha present, the honeyed tip. The danger being the poison barb. How might that sukha, particularly if craving is added to it, lead to dukha? And then third, what's the escape in terms of personal practice? So, for myself, I observe good intentions. Sukha starts with good intent. Oh, wow, it would be really helpful, you know, to advise my adult kids about how to live their life better. Yeah, what a good idea. That's sukha. And, you know, it's a passing thought. Fine. But if I get driven around that, like I want them to agree with me or I want them to pat me on the back, oh, what a wise father I have. Oh, slippery slope. That's the sukha. That's the gratification leading to the danger. It's going to get me in trouble. And the escape just about always involves the release of tantra, the release of craving. So, it's very helpful to contemplate on the sukha that leads to dukha. I think politically these days, there's a lot of opportunity here. There's the initial, I'll call it sukha, of appropriate moral outrage at this or that, or a sense of camaraderie and fellowship with others who are similarly, let's say, outraged. That's kind of where it starts. That alone, very understandable, very much in the service of good. But we can be aware where that outrage and that sense of commonality becomes helpless, seething resentment. Now we're in dukkha land. Sukha has led to dukkha when craving tanha gets added. Sukha plus tanha equals dukkha. It's so easy for sukha to become dukkha. In other words, I'm just thinking there for a moment about just good intentions, wanting. I look at where I live and I think, oh, I'd like a plant here in my garden. All right. But then, fairly quickly, I'm caught up in that project and getting the plant and planting the plant and bringing water to the plant. And what do I do? The plant turns brown. Now, sometimes it's worth it. Sometimes it's worth it. But very easily, these good intentions can become complications. The mind and brain proliferate around them. And suddenly we're in dukkha land. So beware the sukha plus tanha that leads to dukkha. And then last, and certainly not least, of our four, we have sukha-sukha. And just saying these words cracks me up, so I'm going to say them. Sukha-sukha, you may have noticed that, I'm going to make a loose distinction here, worldly sukha, worldly goals, worldly gratifications, worldly pleasures and passions are a little vulnerable to the addition of craving, the addition of tanha. When they arise, that initial sense of good intent or enjoyability or pleasure, it's fine. The Buddha was not against that. One of the breakthroughs for him, distinct from the Jain tradition of his time, was to be not against pleasure per se, even intense pleasure of one kind or another. He was not against that. He just simply pointed out that as soon as we add craving to it, suffering begins. So worldly sukha is vulnerable to the addition of craving. So we need to really be on our toes when we are engaging worldly pleasures because they're vulnerable to the brain's biological tendency for raw survival purposes, the legacy of 600 million years of life and death struggles and the evolution of the nervous system. The brain is very inclined to add craving to ordinary pleasures. So we need to be especially mindful of that process, especially alert to the arising of tanha, the arising of craving, and try to relax and try to let it dissipate and allow the sukha to be present and allow it to pass away as it naturally and permanently will. On the other hand, they're called unworldly, which is a funny translation because they're in the world typically, although ultimately maybe they're beyond the natural world. But anyway, the deeper, more sublime sukha of vastness and stillness or just like a vast love, an unconditional love, a sense of just jaw-dropping gratitude, gobsmacked with gratitude, flooded with beauty. We have a sense, I think you do, that there are certain forms of sukha, I'll call it profound sukha, better than unworldly, that is not vulnerable to craving. People don't tend to crave the sublime. They don't tend to crave profound inner peace. Sometimes people do, but on the whole, it's just there. It's wonderful. There might be a longing to come home to it, a longing to return, but it doesn't have that, does it? It doesn't have that quality of contraction. So you might ask yourself, what are those fulfillments? What are those enjoyments that do not call for contraction and pressure and pushing or grasping? They just don't really call for it. And that kind of sukha generally does not lead to dukkha. That is the fourth category of sukha-sukha. And it is simply true that as people ground themselves in those three layers of the depths that we explored in the meditation, each one of those is a sukha that does not lead to dukkha. I suspect as we finished the meditation, you might've been glad that the bell rang. On the other hand, you might've thought, oh, this is so sweet. But there probably was not that kind of pressured, contracted clinging to the experience. That's the hallmark of tantra craving that leads to suffering. And if you also had a sense of, or began to get a bit of a taste or touch of the vastness and stillness and peacefulness in allness altogether, or even the unconditioned ground of all, those are openings into sukha-sukha, the sukha that is not so vulnerable to craving and suffering. And the more that we can abide in sukha-sukha, the more happily and resiliently we can live. And also, of course, the more that we can endure and tolerate and even choose appropriate dukkha that leads to sukha, healthy dukkha, that's good. And also, the more that we can be alert to the tendencies of sukha leading to craving and thus dukkha, the better. And then last, of course, when we face dukkha challenges of life, try to minimize our reactivity to it so that the dukkha challenge does not lead to the dukkha of suffering when we add tantra to it. All right. Dukkha, sukha, tantra. So much is summarized in how we practice with dukkha-dukkha, dukkha-sukha, sukha-dukkha, and sukha-sukha. I hope this was useful to you. Where does the sukha come from? Marilyn asked. I watch the goldfish in my pond rising to eat the food I give them once or twice a day. You know, they're having some sukha moment. You know, they're natural bodily pleasures. There's the relief of escape from danger. You know, there's the reassurance of, you know, someone caring about you. These are natural, I think. Those are worldly forms of sukha, according to my distinctions. Certainly, culture and conditioning and biology shape what is pleasurable for someone, not so for others. I have friends who love opera. For me, I think it's incredibly skillful, and I would rather spend the next two hours doing almost anything else. But, you know, that's me. I'm an uncultured lout. People like different things. I will say that throughout cultures, what is interesting is that while there's a lot of variation in the kind of foods people like, different forms, you know, sukha, worldly sukha is different. Profound sukha tends to be really similar in its account, even across all kinds of cultures. I think because it's extremely deep in us, and so there's not so much variation about it. It's like profoundly inherent. Okay, I think, um, let's see, anything else? You can definitely love your partner without craving. And again, watch out the words here. I'm speaking to Rosanna, 25 minutes past the hour. We can be extremely attached. We can have experiences of attachment that are really strong, and you can also be aware of the subtleties of possessiveness, the refusal to face the ultimate impermanence of the body of your partner and your own. You can be aware of subtleties of tanha that are added to that kind of sukha. And of course, when they die, we grieve. Of course, we grieve loss. Grieving is loving. Of course, we grieve. And that kind of grieving is just plain dukkha. It's first-start dukkha. It's uncomfortable, it's sorrowful, and it's not a problem at all. So yeah, you can, and for me, what's really interesting, and I'll leave you with this for your own practice, is to explore how to be right in the middle, because everybody here just about, I think everybody, is not a monastic or householders. How can we be right in the middle of eating a really good meal or right in the middle of doing something we really care about while being at a deep place inside, independent of it as an experience, and free in our relationship to it, and profoundly undisturbed in the core of our being, profoundly still, profoundly stable in the core of our being, even as 99.9% of us is really cheering on the Golden State Warriors to make it further in the playoffs, but it's not going to happen, right? That's a great exploration, isn't it?