Buddhist Thoughts on Humor

Laughter and a sense of humor can be a universal index of spiritual development. Scientists in Japan, explained that wholehearted laughter is good for your heart and your health in general.

Use self-effacing humor with humility. Practice letting everything in with acceptance and a lack of fragility. By not taking yourself too seriously you are less likely to get wounded.

This type of humor builds trust, leveling everyone in the room. With humor we can let go of our tight gripping sense of who we are. It breaks down the social barriers that separate us. It does not belittle but uplifts us, allows us to recognize and laugh about our shared humanity, about our shared vulnerabilities, and our shared frailties. Life is hard and laughter is how we come to terms with all the ironies, cruelties and uncertainties that we face.

Humor is something that you can cultivate. Like anything else, it is a skill. It helps if you have the inclination, or if you can laugh at yourself. It’s about humility. Laugh at yourself and don’t be pompous or serious. If you start looking for the humor in life, you will find it. You will stop asking, Why me? and start recognizing that life happens to all of us. It makes everything easier, including your ability to accept others and accept all that life brings.

THE TRUTH OF GROUNDLESSNESS

Groundlessness is the largest truth we come to through years of meditation. We avoid groundlessness by pushing away and grasping throughout our life. Mental activity is our way out. We indulge in planning, constantly trying to get somewhere, believing that once we arrive it will stay that way. We are wired to do everything we can to gain predictability and familiarity. It is how we seek happiness. Instead of locking into a plan, can we rest in spaciousness? Fear can be destabilizing. Can we abide in the fear with interest and curiosity rather than filling the space with habitual patterns that take you out of the present moment? When we avoid the groundlessness of life we miss out on the freedom it brings.

Compassion means letting go of self-identity

Fear makes you self-absorbed. If you are self-absorbed you get brittle and mean. If you are mad or fearful you can’t be compassionate. Compassion will come naturally when you feel completely safe. Just noticing the fear invites it to leave. Being compassionate means the war in your head is over.

Compassion is present when you let go of your self-identity. Let go of making yourself the center if the world by thinking, “what I want is not more important than the benefit of the whole community.” With true compassion everyone enjoys the same benefits. Applying wisdom to the compassion means not holding on to the way things “should” be.

Kindness and caring will help us overcome all obstacles. The transformation starts with ourselves. We need to give ourselves the love, kindness, forgiveness and the space to transform.

Boston Dharma Punx meets weekly at the Lutheran Church, 66 Winthorp St, Cambridge, MA on Sundays from 4:00-5:30. Check our web site for updates.

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

Accountability Without Animosity

You can’t be an effective agent of change if you are angry. But you can’t just stuff down your anger either. You need to notice it and process it. Only then can you move forward in a positive way.

Think about what kind of results you want. You can practice accountability without animosity by holding the person accountable but giving them a way out. How can you get the results you want without backing yourself and the person into corners, behaving in a way that keeps you farther from your goals?

In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh “If someone is being unpleasant towards you or treating you badly, that means that they are unhappy. Accept that they are unhappy and treat them with love. Offer kindness without feeling superior, self-righteous, arrogant or smug. Do it with humility. Doing Metta meditation for them will help you internalize and truly experience your love.”

Freedom

The present is the only moment where you can choose freedom….. The freedom not to be controlled by habitual patterns and social conditioning. Being present and seeing your patterns and knowing you have agency over them.

Be present and make a conscious choice with understanding will bring you a moment of freedom. And…. there is freedom in forgiving yourself from bad choices you’ve made.

We we are constantly falling short of where we want to be so if you can’t forgive yourself, you don’t really have a Buddhist practice.

Making Choices

Does this choice make you larger or smaller? Does it close you down or open you up? Make you resentful and bitter or softer? Or critical or more generous? Will this suffering make me wiser or stupid? Meet these questions with curiosity. What is it to be human? Everything is an experiment. Thinking this way gives you the freedom to fail. To test things out. Remember that it is the process that is important not the outcome. Let go of the judgment around it. Ask yourself am I being kind?

Difficult feelings such as anger, resentment and rage are teachers. Ask yourself why am I behaving this way? Investigate the feeling underneath the original feeling with kindness and curiosity.

The Three Poisons

The 3 poisons or the three unwholesome roots in Buddhism, are called the three root Kleshas in Sanskrit.They are craving or desire for pleasant things, aversion or anger at unpleasant things and ignorance or non-interacting. All our thoughts fall into these 3 categories. They are considered to be afflictions or character flaws innate in all beings that cause us suffering. The more we get caught up in the story line of these 3 poisons the more we suffer. As we spiral down into the poisons, we keep speaking to ourselves and our world gets smaller, tighter and restricted. We jump from one poison to another endlessly. People and things trigger our cravings. And when we are caught in the web of our suffering, the world does not present options or a way out.

Train yourself to gently let go of the story and gradually look at what is really underneath it. Get curious about it. Curiosity brings comfort in the face of uncertainty. Curiosity is neutral. Try to make friends with yourself and others without judgement and you will find a place where it is softer, wider and there is more freedom.

ARE YOU SEEKING OR DISCOVERING?

When someone is seeking they have a goal, and quite often they only see the thing that they are seeking. They become unable to find anything and unable to absorb anything, because they are only thinking of the thing they are seeking. They become obsessed with their goal. 

Do not seek, but rather strive to discover. Discovering is to be free, to be receptive, curious and to have no goal. 

Letting Go

Sometimes we don’t know what we need to let go of in order to move forward. Lean into what you are feeling. Often there is comfort in knowing what is behind the feeling.  If not, accept it and apply compassion and tenderness for yourself and others. Labeling the feeling is often enough to cause it to dissipate. When feeling returns, label it again with compassion and forgiveness. Repeat. Soon it will be just a part of who you are…. your friend, that you fully accept with love and understanding.

CONQUERING FEAR

Fear can be paralyzing. Or it can start you down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out “what will happen if….” But we can’t adequately know or predict the future. Mediation teaches us to accept the way things are, instead of fighting things. Being in the present instead of the future or past. Focus on what you can know now, such as your intentions and your attitude. Feelings can be mixed and multi layered making them harder to decipher. Often you can know your feelings by directly experiencing them in certain parts of your body. Checking your motivation can help. Fear is often accompanied by blaming others or blaming yourself. Part of resolving fear is knowing that fear is there to protect you. You will have won your battle with fear, when you can truly and deeply feel that whatever happens you can handle the outcome.

Why Do I Meditate?

I meditate because I want my brain to leave me alone.  Meditation makes everything seems less important. I don’t mean everything is less important than meditation. I mean the barrage and complexity of everyday tasks lessen in importance. They can get overwhelming and it’s hard to sort out their hierarchy. Then the judging mind comes rushing in followed by paralyzing doubt. Meditating helps to let go of evaluating everything. One realizes that stress and anxiety don’t have to accompany every task. All we really have is the here and now, and the here and now experience is greatly affected by our own minds. There is immense relief when the thinking mind falls back from consciousness and the sensations of the moment become all there is. Everything can change and is changing every minute. It is within our power.

Transitioning From Covid Days

     We are all transitioning from the Covid lockdown days to the new normal. It feels unsettling. We all felt loss during Covid, but some of us gained some things. For some, extreme hyper vigilance and fear took hold. Isolation, loneliness, death and grief overwhelmed people. 

But for others, wearing a mask increased a feeling of emotional protection. Some felt relief that our lives did not have to amount to anything significant during lockdown. A silent stillness and emptiness in the city streets provided solace. For some staying home alone made life easier. Everyone experienced it differently.

      We now find ourselves either trying to move into something different or get back something we had. The transition can feel to abrupt with lost routines and stalled attempts to find new ways.

      Resist the urge to think “If I can just get there…. or have this, it will all be ok.” This way of thinking is future oriented and can set up expectations that might not get met. The finish line keeps moving future and future away. Try to be ok with “not knowing” in the present moment. Always trying to fit your life in a prescribed notion of what you imagine it to be can signal trouble. With meditation we can put a little more space in our lives and be less judgmental of ourselves and others during these difficult transitional periods. We soon discover new cracks of openness and an immense opportunity arises to fill them with kindness. 

      Dharma Punx Boston meets every Sunday outdoors from 4:00pm - 5:30pm. Everyone is welcome to join us. We meet across from 73 Park Dr., Boston 02215, under the trees next to the James P Kelleher Rose Garden. You might want to bring a folding chair, cushion or towel to sit on. You can park for free in many resident spaces nearby on Sundays. The T stop is at either Fenway or the MFA. Our meetings are peer led by members of our sangha and include meditation, and a brief talk on a Buddhist related topic and a group discussion.

The Thinking Mind and The Process of Meditation

"Most people assume that thinking is a virtue and the zenith of human creativity but fail to appreciate that worry, fear and anxiety are thinking operating at an intensified vibration. Everyone knows how difficult it is to stop thinking when agitation or intense feelings arise, as any emotional disturbance fuels the thinking process. Unless someone is prepared to stop thinking or daydreaming in the good times, it will be impossible to halt the thinking momentum when difficulties arise. 

To master the thinker is the most challenging task of the spiritual process. It does, however, yield great self-knowledge and clarity when the practice becomes second nature and the mind becomes obedient to the power of a superior intelligence. In the process of mastering the thinker, it’s important to understand the psychology of thought. A single thought is not thinking. Random images are unavoidable so it’s to be vigilant and consciously alert so as not to allow the next frame to move. The thought will disappear when consciously present in the senses. Once the idea of this is grasped and someone sees in their own experience how effective this is, there’s a much greater sense of being in command of the inner space. Then, when it’s necessary to take some practical action in the world, the mind will function with much greater efficiency, and afterwards obediently return to a state of neutrality.    

The main difficulty is commitment to the discipline of being still. The human mind fears stillness even though it may appear to co-operate for a while, especially in the early stages. Once it grasps you’re serious, however, it’s amazing the range of plausible excuses it makes to avoid making time to be still. The mind has become habitually attached to the momentum of thinking as a means to safeguard its aversion to stillness. This is because the mind equates the state of inner peace as the ultimate dread and fear. The spiritual liberation that everybody yearns to realise is none other than the state of no thought. When this state can be contained and integrated as a way of being, the whole perspective of what it means to be a man or woman of the earth is radically changed. 

The solution to mastering the thinker is the purification of inner space. Whenever the demands of the self are transcended, a little piece of space within the subconscious is reclaimed. This creates, over a period of time, a perimeter of purified space that is impenetrable to negative thoughts and emotions, not unlike a castle moat which prevents the intrusion of any hostile forces. As intelligence dissociates from identifying with erroneous thoughts and memory impressions, the perception is actually withdrawing from the thinking band of the human psyche into the pure psyche, where any unnecessary mental association is transcended. "

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Spiritual Guides

Who are your guides? A guide is any person who teaches us to be wiser and kinder. Animals, a work of music or art, or nature itself can be a guide. Guides show us the ways love can be expressed. They show us a vision of what we can accomplish. The Buddha was a guide, but today we fine guides in ordinary people. Guides appear when we need them. Because no teacher is perfect, and our guides can be flawed. We are all human, and accepting your guides flaws is part of receiving the wisdom your guide possesses. One of the primary roles of a guide is to reflect our wisdom and joy back to us. A guide makes your feelings easier. They share your pain and dissipate your loneliness. Acknowledge and practice gratitude when a guide appears for you.

Intentions and Goals

Intentions are more forgiving than goals. Intentions are a process of working towards something. With a goal you can feel like you are failing. A goal is outcome orientated and specific and can be affected by unforeseen circumstances. Intentions are more flexible and based on what is within your control. An intention can be seen as a filter you put over your experience. A relative direction you are approaching. Whether you choose an intention or a goal, remember “the path is always the heart. Even though the method may change”

Practicing Non-Attachment

Try to feel non-attachment, not just think it, but really feel it. Letting go of attachments to outcomes can be a gateway to contentment. That doesn’t mean every outcome should be seen as positive of even or ok. Whatever outcome emerges, acknowledged it with all subsequent emotions identified, felt, accepted and let go. Removing a sense of a fixed self and the judging mind can open doors you didn’t imagine. Approach it with curiosity. Would you work as hard if you are not attached to outcomes? Experiment while watching your feelings and actions. Attachment to a goal can cause you to miss the joyful things that can show up serendipitously during the process. Stay aware in the moment with ease.

Go Lightly

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days…Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…to throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling…”

— Aldous Huxley, “Island”

Now is Always Available

Every time you sit and meditate it’s a different experience. This is not a problem and doesn’t mean you aren’t growing. It just is. Each time it is a new opportunity. Be present with your experience rather than doubting yourself. Come back to your breath with compassion, forgiveness and kindness. The situation is always changing. Meditation is not cognitive. It’s happening on a different level. Tapping into the level of the heart changes the way we see things and helps us let go of clinging to an outcome.

New Beginnings

A Warm Day

By Louise Glück

 Today the sun was shining

so my neighbor washed her nightdresses in the river—

she comes home with everything folded in a basket,

beaming, as though her life had just been

lengthened a decade. Cleanliness makes her happy—

it says you can begin again,

the old mistakes needn’t hold you back …

Sometimes all you can think during you daily gratitude practice is “I’m grateful the day is over and tomorrow is another day…. I can begin again.”  Beginning again is filled with optimism. Clinging and aversion is where we suffer. Letting go of what we cling to or what we are angry at is hard. On the other side of letting go is beginning again, which is creative and life affirming.

Covid 19 forces us to find joy in the smallest things. The simplicity of cooking a lunch every day or the feeling of clean sheets against your body at night. Preparing for the change in seasons by moving your tee shirts out of your draws and replacing them with your winter sweaters. Doing things we naturally want to rush through slowly and appreciating them with a sense of spaciousness can give us room for new beginnings.

Letting Go

Often times we don’t know what we need to let go of in order to move forward. Things that that were useful when we were young and have become adaptive strategies, can stop working and hold you back.  Sometimes we need to let go of our habit of trying to solidify the future and our expectations and just be open to the possibilities of life. Being fixed on one idea can close you off to all the other possibilities around you. Sometimes it’s a matter of letting go of the constant need for approval. Self-judgements, moralizing, harshness, shame and deception can surround the thing we need to let go of. Sometime we just need to acknowledge… “I’m not going to get that thing”… and ask ourselves “can I let it go of it with kindness, forgiveness and love?”